Congress and BJP were today engaged in a slugfest over alleged illegal snooping on a young woman by a close aide of Narendra Modi with the ruling party charging that this is an assault on civil liberties while BJP rejected Congress demand for a rethink on its prime ministerial nominee.
BJP President Rajnath Singh rubbished the allegations and charged that the "dirty tricks wing" of Congress is behind the controversy. "There is no question of doing a rethink on our prime ministerial candidate even if a thousand baseless allegations of this kind are made against Modi. We have already said that we apprehend the dirty tricks wing of the Congress will make such baseless allegations against Modi as the elections draw near," Singh said.
He was responding to Law Minister Kapil Sibal's demand yesterday that BJP will be forced to rethink its prime ministerial candidate as the charges are very serious.
Modi's close aide and former state home minister Amit Shah was yesterday accused of misusing his power and police machinery for illegal surveillance of a young woman in 2009. Singh also wondered how Cobrapost got the call details when IPS officer G L Singhal, who did the illegal surveillance, had handed over the records to CBI. "Singhal had got bail with CBI support. He was also involved in the Tulsi Prajapati encounter but still got bail," Singh said. He pointed out that Cobrapost itself has said it cannot make any claims about the authenticity of the CD.
Meanwhile, Congress upped the ante against BJP alleging that the Opposition party wants to make India a Orwellian state. "First the Gujarat pogrom, which was followed by fake encounter and now the brazen assault on civil liberty by state sponsored stalking. What kind of state do these people want to create in which you and I, our family members, every man, woman on the street will be subject to stalking by state apparatus," Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari said.
CPI(M) demanded a court-monitored inquiry into the matter.
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