Despite speculation about the price and other details surrounding the Mercedes Maybach, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was placed under surveillance. On Wednesday, government sources claimed that the new cars were not an upgrade. They are a routine replacement for the BMW model that Modi had previously used. An official source stated that the cars are much cheaper than media speculation and actually costs about one-third the price quoted by the media.
A Maybach car is priced at more than Rs 12 crore in a section.
Official sources stated that the SPG security detail has an eight-year rule to replace the vehicles. The previous cars had been used for eight years under Modi. This led to an audit objection and comments about how it was threatening the life of Modi.
Security detail purchases are made based on protectee’s threat perception. The SPG makes these decisions without the protectionee’s knowledge.
“The wide-ranging discussion about the security features of protectee’s cars is not in the national interest because it places in the public domain a lot more detail than necessary. The source said that this only threatened the life of the protectedee.”
Officials claimed that Modi does not have a preference for which cars to be used and pointed out that Congress president Sonia Gandhi had previously used Range Rovers that were actually purchased for the former prime minister.
The prime minister has used BMW cars over the years.
