As Home Minister, Shivraj Patil presided over one of the bloodiest periods in India’s recent history. The four and half years of his tenure were laced with about 20 major terrorist strikes, hundreds of deaths of innocent civilians in internal violence, and an alarming increase in the spread of Naxal activities, to mention just a few elements of internal security.

To be fair to Patil, he never got much of assistance from any of the state governments, which are directly responsible for the maintenance of law and order and also for collecting intelligence information at the grassroots level. The states were quite happy to see the responsibility and the blame being fixed on Patil.

But his own statements and actions never instilled any confidence among the people who were at the receiving end of an endless cycle of violence and mindless terror attacks.

There have been eight major incidents of terrorist strikes in this year alone — including the latest attacks in Mumbai — in which more than 400 people have lost their lives. But all that came out in response from the Home Ministry was some inane statements that, to the hapless victims, sounded hollow, repetitive and impotent, even comic.

Even as recently as last weekend, Patil did not forget to mention that the incidents and casualties in the past four years was much less than those that occurred in the previous four and half years. “Yet, the impression created is that terrorism has increased and not reduced,” he said at the annual conference of police chiefs.

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