The Centre has given former Trinamool Congress MP Mukul Roy a Y+ category of armed VIP security cover, a day after he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party, PTI reported.

The Central Reserve Police Force will be in charge of safeguarding Roy, the report said. A senior official told PTI that Roy was allotted the category of VIP security after central intelligence and security agencies submitted a threat analysis report.

Roy had the Z+ security cover until last month, when he resigned from the Rajya Sabha and all posts in the Trinamool Congress.

“There has always been a threat to my life, and this why the state government had given me Z+ category protection,” Roy told India Today. He added that the Central Government had also “considered the level of threat perception”.

Roy was suspended from the Trinamool Congress for six years on September 25 for allegedly indulging in anti-party activities. A former Union railway minister, Roy was removed as the party general secretary in 2015, after the Central Bureau of Investigation began to look into his involvement in the Saradha chit fund scam.