Lalu Prasad Yadav, Raman Singh lose NSG cover, Bihar BJP leaders get security

NEW DELHI: The Home Ministry has withdrawn the NSG Black Cats security cover of RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav and Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh. They will now be guarded by the CRPF but will still continue to get a Z-plus security cover.

Lalu Prasad Yadav, the former Bihar Chief Minister, will get the CRPF cover only in Bihar and Delhi while Raman Singh will get the same only in Chhattisgarh. This comes after demands from the NSG to reduce their VIP security duties so that they can concentrate on their specialist anti-terrorism and anti-hijacking roles. NSG still has nearly a dozen protectees like Rajnath Singh, Mayawati, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Akhilesh Yadav, LK Advani, M. Karunanidhi, J. Jayalalithaa and Murli Manohar Joshi.

With Bihar assembly polls around the corner, the Centre has meanwhile extended CRPF security to a number of Bihar BJP leaders. The Bihar BJP President Mangal Pandey, former BJP Minister in the Nitish Kumar Cabinet and now MP from Maharajganj - Janardhan Singh Sigarwal - and Jitender Swami, son of former RJD MP Umashankar Singh, have all been accorded Y-level security from the CRPF in Bihar. Swami joined BJP last year after losing the Maharajganj by-poll on a Congress ticket. BJP's firebrand Jammu leader and Health Minister in PDP-BJP government in J&K, Lal Singh has been granted Z-level security cover from the CRPF by the Home Ministry.

CRPF is now guarding as many as 50 VIPs including Amit Shah, Mukesh Ambani and central ministers like Nitin Gadhkari, Jitendra Singh, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Radha Mohan Singh, Anant Kumar and Babul Supriyo.