Shimla, Mar 9: Former Himachal Pradesh chief minister and BJP leader PK Dhumal Friday accused the ruling Congress government of spreading “canards” on the issue of phone-tapping to malign BJP and tarnish image of its leaders.
The statement came a day after Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh hinted that a case would be registered against the then state home minister of the BJP regime.
“The present Congress government is trying to divert the attention of the people as it has done nothing during the past two-and-a-half month to implement the poll promises and is fast becoming unpopular among the employees, workers and farmers,” Dhumal said in a statement.
Asserting that no orders were ever issued during the previous BJP rule for phone-tapping, Dhumal said,”No orders in written or verbal were ever issued by his government.” Dhumal said, “right from the beginning, we had said that any probe is welcome and even demanded a judicial inquiry by a sitting High Court judge to bring the culprits to the book, but the government was only interested in implicating the BJP leaders in the phone-tapping case.”
He alleged that the Chief Minister, Irrigation and Public Health minister Vidaya Stokes and the Congress party office bearers were giving contradictory statements about number of telephonic conversations allegedly tapped.
“If the phone-tapping case was being probed under the supervision of the state home department, why Vidya Stokes and party officer bearers have gone to the press leaking the information even before the Chief Minister made revelations,” asked Dhumal.
The BJP leader said that there should be a proper probe if any such channel is being exploited for wrong purpose and action should be taken against the culprit and due care should taken that such secret and sensitive information should not be made public as it is serious offence.
