Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting him to allow him retain his 14-member staff. He has given examples of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and also PV Narasimha Rao to emphasise precedence.

This comes in the backdrop of reports saying that following the victory in the Lok Sabha election, the government reduced the size of personal staff support to the former prime minister. Singh's staff was cut down from 14 to five in May.

The Prime Minister's Office (PMO), in a letter dated May 26, had informed Singh about the government's decision to reduce the size of his staff. The five staffers include two personal assistants, one lower division clerk and two peons. The development took place three days after the Modi government was voted back to power in the Lok Sabha election.

In his letter, Singh told Modi that his government had allowed Vajpayee retain his staff after being voted out of power in 2004. The former prime ministers are allowed to have a 14-member staff following a decision taken to this effect by the Narasimha Rao government in 1990s.

The 14-member staff includes officers of the level of director, under-secretary and deputy secretary, besides personal assistants and peons. The staff size, as per rule, was to be reduced from 14 to five after five years of demitting the PMO.

However, all the former prime ministers including IK Gujral and HD Deve Gowda were given waiver by all the incumbents in the PMO. In Vajpayee's case, the staff size was reduced to 12 but this happened after the late BJP leader expressed his willingness to cut down the staff size.