The Indian Express’s front page on Saturday, March 9, was revealing. Coming a day after International Women’s Day, when wonder politicians spoke to their heart’s content on the issue, with Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit going to the extent of saying her daughter feels unsafe in the city.

On the top panel on the page, under the masthead, was pointer to a news report printed inside: “Our heads hang in shame over crime against women, says Sonia”. Nothing untoward for the Congress president and the UPA chairperson to say this on women’s day, especially at a time when her government is both getting a bit of flak for rising number of crimes against women, especially in the capital region, and the big-ticket announcements for women’s security in the budget as also the bills pending before Parliament.

Zooming straight down the page, in fact three-fourths of it, was another news report that both Dikshit and Gandhi would have found interesting: “Twice rejected by Chidambaram, Beni finally gets Z+ security”. Everything untoward in this case.

Z-plus being the highest category of security in India, the union steel minister, along with the other worthies cleared by the home ministry, would now go around with over 50 people in charge of his security. Verma, the Express report says, quoting government sources, has cited “some threat calls to avail the security”. In the last few months, Verma has opened his mouth on a few occasions to utter inanities: like “only Rahul Gandhi can run the country” and that the Congress vice-president is his “prime ministerial candidate, despite a gag order by the junior Gandhi for such sycophancy; that food inflation is a good thing; and that Afzal Guru should not be hanged.

While he did a flip-flop on the last one, saying “whatever the president will decide shall happen”, there has not been any utterance, or reports, on threat he is facing. And no terror group, or criminal gang, is idle enough, or is likely to have been incensed enough, to issue threats to Verma over these remarks. So what could have raised the threat perception between the two rejections for a similar security upgrade by then P Chidambaram and the go-ahead from his successor Sushilkumar Shinde is best left to ministry file notings, or fiction writers.

In fact, the only threat Verma might be facing could be from his own foot, which gets lodged uncomfortably in his mouth each time he opens it, leaving a threatening chance of choking.

The report comes exactly three weeks after the Supreme Court said enough is enough to the obsession for the “VIP security culture”. “The problem has become endemic and part of our political culture,” the court observed.

It also directed the Centre and all states and union territories to furnish details of expenses they incurred on this.

The Centre has said that about Rs 341 crore was spent on guarding VVIPs in Delhi last year, with most of the expenses incurred on 376 persons with ‘Z-plus’ security. That’s more than a third of the Rs 1,000-crore corpus parked by Chidambaram for his much-advertised ‘Nirbhaya fund’ for safety and security of women (read likely focus of the fund here.

Add the money that will now be spent on Verma and the other worthies, and it will go up a few notches.

That there has been no let-up in crime against women since the December 16 gangrape and violence against the 23-year-old paramedic is evident enough in from Sonia Gandhi and Sheila Dikshit’s statements. And if either of them is actually concerned over safety of women, they should have a tete-a-tete with Verma and his ilk, specifically on their love for sporting a huge security contingent in tow.

Freed of the expenses and the additional police/central security personnel on such hobbies, the scene can get a little safer for not only women but everyone on the streets. Otherwise Gandhi’s head would remain hung over in shame and Dikshit’s daughter would keep feeling threatened in the city. For a long time to come.