The Centre on Sunday provided CRPF security cover to Rajya Sabha member Harbhajan Singh, a day after the AAP government in Punjab withdrew his shield amid protests by party workers outside the residence of the former cricketer in Jalandhar, sources said.

Singh is one of the six MPs who switched to the BJP from the AAP along with Raghav Chadha.

Sources in the Union home ministry said Singh was now being protected by
CRPF commandos in Delhi and Punjab.

The police security cover for the parliamentarian, comprising 9-10 officers, was withdrawn on Saturday. Later, several AAP workers protested outside Singh’s house in Punjab and spraypainted the word “gaddar” (traitor) on its boundary wall.

Similar demonstrations were also held outside the residences of Ashok Mittal and Rajinder Gupta, two other Rajya Sabha members who left the AAP and joined the BJP, in Punjab.

The protests came a day after Chadha announced his exit from the AAP and said he would join the BJP along with six other parliamentarians of the party — Sandeep Pathak, Ashok Mittal, Harbhajan Singh, Rajinder Gupta, Swati Maliwal and Vikramjit Sahney.

Chadha, a 37-year-old accountant and co-founder of the AAP in 2012, was once the party’s youth icon. He has been aloof from his party for more than a year and remained silent over the liquor policy case against AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal, which was quashed last month.

AAP leader and Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann has sought an appointment with President Droupadi Murmu to demand the recall of the state’s six Rajya Sabha members who have joined the BJP.