The car bomb blast in Delhi on November 10, 2025 immediately took my memories to 2008. September 13 is my birthday and hence the ‘remembering’ power worked much better! Does India remember Sonia Gandhi’s handpicked Home Minister Shivraj Patil ? He had said, “Criticise me and my policies, Do not criticise my clothes”. September 13, 2008; No journalist could have missed it. My daughter Tanvi too noticed it and shyly told her mom as she watched TV “Tell Papa, Home Minister has come again on screen in a different dress (outfit)”.
Media reports, political detractors and critics claimed that the then Home Minister Shivraj Patil, hand-picked by Sonia Gandhi was more guided by loyalty than efficiency, appeared on television and visited blast sites in atleast three different sets of clean clothes throughout the evening and night. This was widely seen as a display of vanity and a lack of focus on the gravity of the national security crisis. Worse for a die-hard Congress chamcha in ‘The Statesman’ newspaper office — the episode was played down in our reporting. I was just a few months old staffer(Special Representative) with the reputed newspaper then and hence swallowed my disapproval.
Looking back one should point out Shivraj Patil had lost 2004 Lok Sabha polls but as the Vajpayee government too was booted out; under Manmohan Singh at the instance of Sonia Gandhi and Ahmed Patel, Shivraj had become India’s Home Minister than succeeding a man like L K Advani. This ‘changing outfit’ episode on a day when multiple blasts left India bleeding contributed to a larger narrative of his poor handling of the internal security. Ultimately, these had led to his resignation as the Home Minister on November 30, 2008, in the aftermath of the deadly 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks.
The frequent dress changes, combined with a perceived general ineffectiveness in handling a series of terrorist attacks in 2008, led to significant public and political backlash. BJP leader Arun Jaitley had clarified however that the ‘real issue’ wasn’t his clothes but his work. After Shivraj had resigned and P. Chidambaram took charge as the Home Minister; the then Railway Minister Lalu Prasad also ‘informally’ told journalists that Shivraj Patil’s handling of Home portfolio was very poor. As a matter of fact it can be mentioned that when the UPA government was formed in 2004 – the RJD chief had bargained hard for the prized Home portfolio. But it was categorically rejected by Sonia Gandhi. Between 2005 and 2008, multiple terror strikes took place across India.
During Sonia Gandhi’s virtual rule over India with Manmohan Singh as the PM between October 2005 and mid-September 2008, over 400 people were killed in bomb attacks across Indian cities including Delhi and Ahmedabad. In 2008, Shivraj Patil’s junior colleague MoS Home Sriprakash Jaiswal had said, “I can just say that these blasts have been planned by the enemies of the country and they will be taught a lesson”. The UPA regime, however, did not teach Pakistan any lesson even after the infamous and unpardonable 26/11 terror strike in Mumbai. Delhi attack was later described by security analysts as coordinated bombings. Blast had taken place at busy Connaught Place too and one non-journalist staffer in The Statesman narrowly escaped.
As many as 18 people had been killed and in one of the government hospitals alone, more than
50 casualties were wheeled in within two hours of the blasts. The bombings (Sept 13, 2008) were part of a series of terrorist attacks in cities across the country apparently intended to sow panic, inflict civilian casualties and even inflame tensions between Hindus and Muslims. Yet again a group called Indian Mujahedeen sent an e-mail message to news channel offices which were blatantly pro-Congress those days. The group had even claimed ‘responsibility’ for several other deadly bombings across India between 2005 and 2008. This was later filmed in a Bollywood movie starring John Abraham as a serious cop. Of course, the series of terrorist attacks had loomed large over Indian politics as 2009 Lok Sabha polls
were not far off.
But the BJP could not capitalise and lost Delhi assembly polls held just a day after the Mumbai terror siege and later Lok Sabha polls in the summer of 2009. “Along with inflation, which has risen sharply in recent months (that is in 2008), the (bomb) attacks are a major point of vulnerability for the incumbent administration. There have been few arrests related to the attacks”, reported ‘The New York Times’.
On Sept 13, 2008 during the Delhi explosions, the first blast went off after 6PM in a market in the Karol Bagh neighborhood and explosives were apparently stuffed in a three-wheeled rickshaw. The Connaught Place explosion was in a public trash can outside a busy subway. A woman’s hand was blown off, said eye witnesses near Connaught Place. Passers by returned home with their clothes bloodstained. The Indian Mujahedeen also claimed credit for serial bombings in the western city of Ahmedabad in July that killed 49 and wounded more than 200.
No doubt; the Indian Mujahedeen also said the attacks were “badla” — that is in revenge of Gujarat.
The same year explosions rocked Bengaluru in July and as many as 56 people had died in the historic western city of Jaipur in May. In 2023, Karnataka police made a significant breakthrough with the arrest of five suspected terrorists, allegedly acting on the instructions of Junaid Ahmed, the prime accused. T Nazir, the former commander for Lashker-E-Taiba (LeT), was arrested in connection with the Bengaluru blasts in 2008. Nazir, the mastermind behind the 2008 blasts case and a native of Kerala, had been living in Karnataka’s Kodagu district under the guise of a ginger cultivator.
Even independent observers say the Nov 10, 2025 blast has brought memories of 17 years back.
“The explosion is a stark reminder of a more violent decade when bombings were a recurring urban fear”,
wrote journalist Soutik Biswas
