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Former PM Manmohan Singh seeks probe even as Nitin Gadkari dismisses media reports of bugging as 'highly speculative'

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A media report has claimed that high power listening devices were found in the bedroom of Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari's 13 Teen Murti Lane residence in New Delhi. 

Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Sunday there should be an investigation into the report of bugging devices having been found in Gadkari's residence, 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. 

Gadkari has dubbed the report as "highly speculative". "Reports in a section of the media about listening devices having been found at my New Delhi residence are highly speculative," Gadkari said on his Twitter account. 

The report comes barely a month after revelations that the BJP was one of the six global political parties that the United States' National Security Agency was authorised to conduct surveillance on by an American court in 2010.

There have been many high-profile snooping controversies in the recent past. During Prime Minister Singh's regime, the then finance minister Pranab Mukherjee wote to Singh about an adhesive-like substance that might have been used to implant electronic listening devices being found in his office in 2011, and also the defence ministry during the General VK Singh-government row. 

Meanwhile, many people are demanding clarity on the issue. Tariq Anwar of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) has asked the government to give a statement on the bugging issue. 

 

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