New Delhi : A miffed Congress Party is likely to seek answers from the NDA Government in Parliament on Monday over the visit of Delhi Police officials to the party office to seek details of Rahul Gandhi’s physical appearance. The Congress is expected to bring other opposition parties on board and demand a statement from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Rajnath Singh on the issue, media reports said. On Sunday, the Congress alleged that some opposition leaders were also being “snooped” upon, and insisted that the matter was a serious enough nature to be discussed in Parliament.
“The present government has much to answer when it comes to right of privacy of citizens. They are now trying to do it everywhere what was happening in one state. Both Modi and Amit Shah are now here. It is not confined to one person. It is much deeper. The practice that they had adopted in Gujarat, they want to carry it out now every where,” party spokesperson Anand Sharma told reporters at the office of the All India Congress Committee in New Delhi. Congress Member of Parliament from Thiruvananthapuram and former union minister of state Shashi Tharoor termed the whole issue as “Snoopgate 2”.
He said Mr. Modi needed to explain why the government needed details of a person protected by the Special Protection Group (SPG). Delhi Police personnel visited Rahul Gandhi’s residence last week and also sought details about his height and colour of eyes and hair. A team, led by Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police Jatin Narwal, visited Gandhi’s Tughlak Lane residence to enquire about the sequence of events. The team also checked the pictures of the policemen who had visited Rahul’s residence a couple of days ago and enquired about the colour of Congress leader’s eyes and hairs.
The Delhi Police on Saturday said it was a routine security enquiry and that there was no malafide intention behind it. As the news surfaced, the Home Ministry sought a report from the Delhi Police in this regard. Delhi Police Commissioner B S Bassi said Saturday, “Rahul Gandhi was not targeted by the police. It was a routine activity which is done to keep records of vulnerable personalities. Police also visited houses of Veerappa Moily, L K Advani, K Chandrasekhar Rao among others. There was no malafide intension behind seeking details about Gandhi.”
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) accused the Congress of trying to politicize the issues. In Hyderabad, Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said Mr. Modi or Rajnath Singh were not involved in the police trying to find out details about Rahul Gandhi. Rahul has been on a sabbatical since the start of Parliament’s budget session on February 23.
