Politicians' life more important than others

NEW DELHI: Mayawati, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Lalu Prasad and Murli Manohar Joshi can breathe easy, cocooned in the safety of their elite NSG covers. The government, driven by sharp reactions from the ���affected��� parties to a Union home ministry move to replace NSG���s Black Cats protecting the four leaders with commandos of CISF or ITBP, was forced to deny on Thursday any impending changes in the security details of the politicos concerned.

The denial came in the face of a string of adjournments of both the Houses on Thursday over the issue. While minister of state for parliamentary affairs Prithiviraj Chavan gave the assurance of status quo in the protective covers of Ms Mayawati, Mr Joshi and the Yadav duo in the Rajya Sabha, parliamentary affairs minister P K Bansal sought to soothe the tempers in BSP, SP and RJD ranks in the Lok Sabha.

According to MHA sources, however, the proposal to relieve NSG from VIP security duties is still very much on the table, even though the current furore among the affected quarters has forced it to abandon its implementation for the time being.

The VIP revamp exercise, expected soon after the end of current session of Parliament, may now cover only the lower categories of the protected and focus essentially on rationalisation of their respective covers. It is only after the dust has settled that MHA will revisit the security of the Z-plus protectees, which include the country���s top politicians.

BSP members stormed the well of both the Houses when they assembled for the day, expressing concern over the reported move to scale down the security of Ms Mayawati.

After the issue was settled in the Lok Sabha, which saw three adjournments, Congress and SP joined hands to target the Mayawati government for removing security of several non-BSP leaders. This was strongly objected to by BSP members.