Mr Gill was appointed Mr Modi's security advisor in May, 2002 and he served in that role for eight months.
Former Punjab Police top cop, KPS Gill, who said yesterday that Narendra Modi could not be blamed for the Gujarat riots of 2002, today said the "greatest compliment to Modi is that there has not been a single communal incident after that."
Mr Gill, who served as security advisor to the chief minister soon after the riots, has blamed the state police for the communal riots that tore through Gujarat in February-March 2002, killing hundreds of people, mostly Muslims. "The Gujarat riots was a failure of the police...the police was a blunt instrument during the riots," Mr Gill told NDTV today.
The 79-year-old Mr Gill, a celebrated cop but a controversial figure, said a political leader is only as good as his team of officers. "If Modi takes over (as PM) then you can assess his work...the question is if he takes over, who will the officers be? Today if there are failures of the Prime Minister's Office, the fault squarely lies with the bureaucrats."
At the launch of his biography 'KPS Gill: The Paramount Cop' last night, Mr Gill had said, "In law and order situations, it is the police leadership which has to respond and not the political leadership." He had been asked about his assessment of Mr Modi's handling of the riots.
Mr Modi, who is the BJP's prime ministerial candidate for 2014, is accused by his detractors of not doing enough to prevent the riots 12 years ago.
"I realised that people of all political parties who were anti-Modi and anti-BJP were taking advantage of this mayhem and making all efforts to defame Modi one way or the other," Mr Gill said at the book launch.
The Gujarat Chief Minister had, in fact, Mr Gill claims, acted swiftly on his advice. "I had asked Modi to transfer officers which he did with great speed...We reorganized the same CRPF and police and the effects were immediate."
Mr Gill was appointed Mr Modi's security advisor in May, 2002 and he served in that role for eight months.
Mr Modi's political rivals like the Janata Dal United and the Congress are dismissive about Mr Gill's comments and have asked why he is talking about this after 12 years and just before elections.