By IANS,
Mumbai : Admitting that there were shortfalls in intelligence sharing among the country’s various security agencies, Home Minister P. Chidambaram Wednesday said these “gaps” have now been sealed to ensure better co-ordination.
Chidambaram told reporters here that the gaps were mainly on account of multiple central agencies, their subsidiaries in the states and the local state-level agencies.
“Now we have closed these gaps in the working of these agencies which will ensure better intelligence sharing on terrorism, Naxalism and other illegal activities,” Chidambaram said.
Referring to the Maoist violence, Chidambaram asserted that the rebels were trying to disrupt the election process. Chidambaram said he has already visited and undertaken a security review of 12 states in the past five months, since he assumed charge as the home minister, and will be doing so for the other stages of the election process.
Answering a query, Chidambaram said it requires a high level of competence to run a country like India and only the Congress was equipped to face all challenges including the present global economic crisis.
“The Congress party has the capacity to deal with the problem (in the financial sector),” the minister said at a press conference.
“It requires a high degree of competence to deal with the international financial crisis. The BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) cannot deal with it.”
Taking a cue from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s media briefing here Monday, Chidambaram also saluted the spirit of Mumbaikars for the sheer grit in surviving all challenges, including the 26/11 terror attacks.