PALPA: Penetrating the tight security cover, a UCPN-Maoist cadre today covered State Minister for Energy Chandra Singh Bhattarai with black a flag here in Tansen. Security was heightened at the Nanglo Restaurant, where the minister attended an interaction organised by the Reporters' Club Nepal before leaving for Kaligandaki A Hydro-power Project in Syangja. The Maoist activist had covered him in black just before he boarded the vehicle. Minister Bhatttarai, however, responded to the Maoists' action rather calmly. He said such protests of showing black flags by the Maoists was a democratic form of protest for the rebels emerging from the jungle. The minister said top party leaders should end the present political impasse by forging a consensus. Referring to the Maoists, he said peoples' supremacy would not be established by merely toppling the government.