12/13 The Parliament Attack
That afternoon, a group of officers from the PM’s security, the SPG, came in to my office. They were convinced that the PM was the primary target of the assault and thanked me for my fortuitous morning intervention. Our obsession in the PMO on ‘no pendency’ had prevented the prime minister’s carcade from crossing paths with the terrorists. Five days later, Home Minister Advani would confirm that ‘the terrorist assault on the very bastion of our democracy was clearly aimed at wiping out the country’s top political leadership.’