Mukul Roy security cover ‘pulled on his request’

The Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has withdrawn the ‘Z’ security cover provided to West Bengal MLA Mukul Roy days after he rejoined the Trinamool Congress from the BJP. Roy had requested the Centre to withdraw the central security cover. The legislator and his son Subhrangshu will now be provided security by the state government.

Sources in the Union government said that five days ago, Roy had written to the Centre asking them to withdraw his security cover — provided by the CRPF. In 2020, when he was national vice president of the BJP, he was initially given the ‘Y+’ security which was then upgraded to ‘Z’, just before the Assembly elections.

Roy, who contested this year’s Assembly polls and won from the Krishnanagar seat in Nadia district from the BJP, had a security posse of 22-24 CRPF personnel. After Thursday’s decision, a small contingent of CISF personnel deputed with his son, who also fought the Assembly elections from Bijpur on a BJP ticket but lost, has also been withdrawn.

Roy, once the second-in-command of the TMC, was removed from the post of the party’s national general secretary in February, 2015 after being accused in the Narada tape case. He had joined the BJP in November, 2017.