By IANS,
Ranchi: No stern-looking Black Cat commandos or siren-blaring escort vehicles for them, Jharkhand’s assembly speaker and deputy chief minister have declined to use their ‘Y’ security cover, saying it interferes in their mingling with the public.
Assembly Speaker C.P. Singh, a four-time Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislator from Ranchi constituency, moves without pilot cars used to escort VVIPs in the city or the elite Black Cat commandos of Jharkhand police.
Deputy Chief Minister Raghubar Das still lives in his old house situated in the Heavy Engineering Corporation (HEC) of Ranchi. He has no house guard and moves around in an Ambassador car instead of an Endeavour, a Rs.16 lakh SUV purchased for the ministers.
Singh says the stringent security cover comes in the way of meeting people.
“I am a representative of Ranchi and I cannot keep myself away from my people. The blaring siren and escort vehicles create trouble for the people of Ranchi city,” Singh told IANS.
He, however, added: “When I venture outside Ranchi then I move with the pilot cars and security cover.”
Singh became a legislator for the first time in 1996. He won elections for the fourth time successively in the assembly poll in November and December last year.
Raghubar Das, who has been representing Jamshedpur East assembly seat since 1995 and is holding six key departments, including finance and energy, does not take the security cover. He has only one personal bodyguard.
“I am a peoples’ representative and I do not want to create trouble for anyone. I never took security cover. I believe in simple living and do not like behaving in an autocratic way after getting power,” Das told IANS.
In Jharkhand, ministers are covered under Y category security cover. There are at least three escort vehicles with Black Cat commandos of the state police escorting a minister’s SUV.