Nitin Gadkari bugging issue set to rock Parliament on Thursday again

NEW DELHI: Congress is set to keep up the heat on BJP over alleged bugging of Union Minister Nitin Gadkari's house with the opposition party deciding to raise it aggressively in parliament for the second consecutive day tomorrow pressing for a discussion on the issue.

"We will raise it in Parliament tomorrow as well. There has to be a discussion on it, which culminates into an inquiry by a judge. We doubt that some internal agency is involved in the bugging.

"If a minister is being snooped, then it raises doubts that leaders of Opposition parties and other important personalities may also be facing it. That is why we say the inquiry should be done by a judge. The investigation has to be credible," Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad told reporters here.

Azad did not rule out the possibility of Congress seeking suspension of the Question Hour tomorrow to discuss it.

Party spokesperson Shakeel Ahmed targetted Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the issue without naming him and demanded a statement from him on the issue.

"Media says not only Mr Gadkari, Mrs Sushma Sawraj and Mr Rajnath Singh were also bugged. Complete Gujarat model is in place in Delhi also?," Ahmed said on Twitter a day after Congress drew parallel between the bugging incident with the snooping of a woman in Gujarat when Modi was Chief Minister there.

At the AICC briefing, Ahmed said that he was surprised that Home Minister Rajnath Singh, whose ministry should have probed the matter, is saying that no such incident took place, even before an inquiry.

"The Prime Minister should give a statement," he demanded wondering "whether all this is happening because of the internal tussle and rivarly within the Cabinet".

Both Azad and Ahmed referred to portions of BJP leader Subramanian Swamy's remarks.

Swamy had said "my own investigations and my sources reveal that this may happen not later than October last year. The planting of the device and that means at that time, when the UPA was in power, the NSA has specifically targeted BJP and Gadkari was a very important person. He had the confidence of RSS."

Azad said,"Swamy accepted that it happened but later blamed it on the USA. We hear that it was a staff of Gadkari who first leaked this information. Now all of them are denying and saying it did not happen at all. Why this U-turn? That is why we doubt that it may be the handiwork of some internal agency.

"We are not bothered only about the minister. The issue concerns right to privacy and confidentiality of people", he said.

Ahmed also wondered that if nothing has happened, why the ruling party member said so.