Gadkari bug report brings back ghosts of US spying, Snoopgate
28 July 2014 5:32 AM IST
Flagging the controversy, former prime minister Manmohan Singh on Sunday said there should be an investigation into this incident and asked the government to explain the issue in Parliament. ‘If ministers’ houses are bugged, then it is not a good omen. It should be investigated. How can it happen? It should be explained by the government in the House,’ he told reporters at an Iftar get-together hosted by Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
Reports of ‘listening devices’ having been recovered from road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari’s residence surfaced on Sunday. Gadkari has so far not outrightly dismissed the information carried in the said news report and has chosen to call it ‘highly speculative.’ The report had claimed that high-power listening devices were found in the minister’s bedroom at his 13 Teen Murti Lane residence. ‘Reports in a section of the media about listening devices having been found at my New Delhi residence are highly speculative,’ Gadkari tweeted on Sunday.
However, the report said that Gadkari has informed prime minister Narendra Modi and Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat about the incident, which the minister has not countered.
The report also said the recovered devices were of high quality and of a type normally used by western espionage agencies. Backing the foreign hand angle, senior BJP leader Subramanian Swamy said, ‘My own investigations and my sources reveal that this (the planting of device) may have happened not later than October last year. That means at that time, when the UPA was in power, the NSA (of the United States of America) had specifically targeted the BJP and Gadkari was a very important person. He had the confidence of the RSS.’
Millennium Post on 3 August 2013 had reported on how the UPA government had landed itself in serious trouble after it was found that they themselves allowed American spy agencies to set up one of the servers in India. Recently, Washington Post had reported that US’ National Security Agency was authorised by a US court in 2010 to carry out surveillance on the BJP along with five other political organisations across the world, including Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and Pakistan People’s Party.
However, questions are now being asked how come despite the background of snooping on the BJP leader by the foreign agencies, the Indian organisations did not bother to carry out a security check on the matter. This is not the first time that a case of bugging of a central minister has come to fore.
In 2011, offices of the finance ministry were reported to be bugged when current president Pranab Mukherjee held the portfolio. Similarly, there were reports of the office of then defence minister AK Antony being bugged. Investigations into these matters of bugging under UPA government were, however, not pursued beyond a point as it was seen to be a fallout of infighting between Congress leaders themselves. Even Arun Jaitley’s phone was tapped and his call detail records shared creating a major controversy last year.
On Sunday, however, the Congress was quick to point fingers at the BJP on the matter. Party spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said, ‘It reflects a certain lack of faith amongst ministerial colleagues and an absence of mutual trust. It’s time that both Gadkari and also BJP and government come clean on the issue and place before the people of the country if at all there was bugging and if there was snooping being done at whose instance and at whose authority it has been done.’
CPI leader D Raja said it was a serious issue and wondered how anyone can have unauthorised access to Gadkari’s private room. ‘If reports of Gadkari’s house being bugged are true then how could various routine checks be bypassed and did not attract the eye of these intelligence agencies in India,’ he asked.
Reports of ‘listening devices’ having been recovered from road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari’s residence surfaced on Sunday. Gadkari has so far not outrightly dismissed the information carried in the said news report and has chosen to call it ‘highly speculative.’ The report had claimed that high-power listening devices were found in the minister’s bedroom at his 13 Teen Murti Lane residence. ‘Reports in a section of the media about listening devices having been found at my New Delhi residence are highly speculative,’ Gadkari tweeted on Sunday.
However, the report said that Gadkari has informed prime minister Narendra Modi and Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat about the incident, which the minister has not countered.
The report also said the recovered devices were of high quality and of a type normally used by western espionage agencies. Backing the foreign hand angle, senior BJP leader Subramanian Swamy said, ‘My own investigations and my sources reveal that this (the planting of device) may have happened not later than October last year. That means at that time, when the UPA was in power, the NSA (of the United States of America) had specifically targeted the BJP and Gadkari was a very important person. He had the confidence of the RSS.’
Millennium Post on 3 August 2013 had reported on how the UPA government had landed itself in serious trouble after it was found that they themselves allowed American spy agencies to set up one of the servers in India. Recently, Washington Post had reported that US’ National Security Agency was authorised by a US court in 2010 to carry out surveillance on the BJP along with five other political organisations across the world, including Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and Pakistan People’s Party.
However, questions are now being asked how come despite the background of snooping on the BJP leader by the foreign agencies, the Indian organisations did not bother to carry out a security check on the matter. This is not the first time that a case of bugging of a central minister has come to fore.
In 2011, offices of the finance ministry were reported to be bugged when current president Pranab Mukherjee held the portfolio. Similarly, there were reports of the office of then defence minister AK Antony being bugged. Investigations into these matters of bugging under UPA government were, however, not pursued beyond a point as it was seen to be a fallout of infighting between Congress leaders themselves. Even Arun Jaitley’s phone was tapped and his call detail records shared creating a major controversy last year.
On Sunday, however, the Congress was quick to point fingers at the BJP on the matter. Party spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said, ‘It reflects a certain lack of faith amongst ministerial colleagues and an absence of mutual trust. It’s time that both Gadkari and also BJP and government come clean on the issue and place before the people of the country if at all there was bugging and if there was snooping being done at whose instance and at whose authority it has been done.’
CPI leader D Raja said it was a serious issue and wondered how anyone can have unauthorised access to Gadkari’s private room. ‘If reports of Gadkari’s house being bugged are true then how could various routine checks be bypassed and did not attract the eye of these intelligence agencies in India,’ he asked.
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