New Delhi, December 14
Lok Sabha Speaker G.M.C. Balayogi today rejected the Vajpayee government’s proposal to replace the watch and ward Staff of Parliament House with an armed crack force.

The Speaker’s decision was taken after he held a long meeting in his chamber to assess Parliament security at which Deputy Speaker and Joint Secretary (Parliament Security) and other senior officials were present.

Mr Balayogi is understood to have shot down the government proposal for an armed force inside Parliament House, saying that the armed guards could themselves be subverted as had happened in the case of Indira Gandhi.

In another significant development, the video footage of yesterday’s terrorist attack, captured by a surveillance camera deployed at Gate No 1 of Parliament House, was screened in the Speaker’s chamber this afternoon.

The footage clearly showed that the terrorists’ white ambassador car had entered from the Parliament Street main gate and not be Vijay Chowk gate as stated by the government earlier.

Union Home Minister L.K. Advani was one such minister to have made this observation at his press conference yesterday.

Behind the terrorists’ car was a Contessa car of Mr B.P. Singhal, a Rajya Sabha MP of the BJP, and brother of VHP leader Ashok Singhal. Mr B.P. Singhal, a former top BSF official, today told the Speaker that he saw the terrorists in the car ahead of his car sitting “in a cramped manner”.