Amar Singh

New Delhi, May 24: Amar Singh was granted Z-category security today, just two days after being invited to the UPA dinner.

Z-category security is granted only to VIPs to whom there is a very high degree of threat perception.

Amar, who already has Y category protection, had met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh a few days ago and pleaded that his security be upgraded as he feared a threat to his life from Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayavati.

The political significance of this move has not been lost on the other allies of Samajwadi Party in the third front, the UNPA.

While no UNPA leader was openly critical of the Samajwadi Party for cosying up to the Congress, there was speculation on how long the UNPA unity would hold.

Will the proposed third front be a non-starter, was the question being asked.

In the public, however, Leaders of the front attempted to play down the issue saying theirs was a loose coalition of regional parties with different interests that would not affect their larger aim of providing an alternative at the Centre after the next general elections.

But INLD leader Om Prakash Chautala was not happy when asked about the implications of Amar’s growing closeness to the Congress. “We will discuss it between us and not through the media,” he snapped.

K. Yerrannaidu, parliamentary party leader of Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party, too, would not say much.

The Congress is the Telugu Desam’s main opponent in Andhra Pradesh.

When contacted in Hyderabad over phone, Yerran-naidu tried to play down the matter saying that Samaj-wadi chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, the chairman of the UNPA, did not attend the Prime Minister’s dinner meeting.

“So, between them, they are maintaining a balance,” Yerrannaidu said, referring to Amar’s participation.

He justified Amar’s engagements with the Congress, saying that the two parties were trying to make some “adjustment” in Uttar Pradesh against their common foe, the BSP.