Home ministry to rationalise VIP security

NEW DELHI: Under its constant rationalization of the VIP security system, the Union home ministry has decided to cut down/remove the cover of 29 more protectees including MPs, ex-MPs and retired bureaucrats – most of whom getting 'positional' security without having any actual threat.

Prominent among those whose security cover will either be completely removed or be downgraded include Congress MP Rajeev Shukla, Samajwadi Party MP Akhilesh Yadav, BJP MP Ravi Shankar Prasad, former bureaucrat Brajesh Mishra and former CBI director D R Kaarthikeyan among others.

Sources in the home ministry said that most of them who would be covered under the latest rationalization of VIP security plan fell under either 'X' or 'Y' category, depending upon existing threat perception.

The constant rationalisation of the VIP security system by the home ministry had seen the number of protectees in the Central list substantially reduce from 423 in 2008 to 207 as in December last year — over 50% decrease in number of those who get police protection.

The pruning exercise had begun in 2009 when the ministry, on the basis of field inputs, felt that a number of persons, mainly politicians, had got security cover despite having no `actual' threat against them.

Though the pruning exercise has not affected the high-risk individuals who get Z+ category security cover, the list of VIPs in other categories — Z, Y and X — saw sharp decline with the ministry weeding out those from the list who got security on some flimsy ground.