After Rahul, government could spy on officials, parties, media: Congress

Congress on Monday demanded a probe into the alleged snooping on party vice-president Rahul Gandhi as it claimed that the next targets could be persons from the bureaucracy, political parties and media.

"We demand a judicial commission or a Parliamentary committee to probe the surveillance on Rahul Gandhi as it is aimed at suppressing democracy," AICC spokesman Ajay Kumar said at a press conference here.

Next, he claimed, the snooping could be on government officials, political parties and media.

Even former Delhi police commissioners Ved Marwah and B K Gupta denied that any such procedures had been there, Kumar said.

On the controversy surrounding absence of Gandhi Jayanti from the list of holidays in Goa, Kumar refused to accept Goa Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar's logic that dropping of October 2 from the list could be an act of mischief or a typing mistake.

"The BJP has a habit to set off balloons to see public reaction. It denies the action if the reaction is strong and it goes ahead with its action if everything is quiet," alleged Kumar, a former IPS officer.

Slamming the Narendra Modi government on the amendment to Land Acquisition Act, he said, "The BJP government is for only one per cent of the population, protecting the super rich. It is not bothered about farmers and the poor." If the bill was passed, he claimed, even houses in cities would go in the name of creating infrastructure.