Govt tapped phones of Pawar, Karat & others: Rpt

New Delhi, Apr 24: A shocking allegation has been slapped against the government. The UPA has been accused of tapping phones of senior political leaders including one of its own cabinet minister.

According to a report in Outlook magazine, which is to be published in the next issue, the government has tapped phones of leaders such as the NCP supremo and agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, and Congress leader Digvijay Singh.

Quoting highly placed sources, the weekly reveals that the government tapped the phone of BCCI chief Pawar to overhear his conversations with Indian Premier League (IPL) commissioner Lalit Modi. This comes amid the growing controversy over the irregularities and corruption in IPL.

At the time when the government was working towards the Indo-US nuclear deal in 2008, the government reportedly tapped Prakash Karat's phone. It was Karat who led the Opposition against the nuke deal.

Bihar CM Nitish Kumar's phone was tapped on 2007 to hear him discussing central funds for the Kochi river project with a colleague, the magazine states.

In Feb 2007, the government tapped Digvijay Singh's phone while he was busy discussing poll candidates with a Punjab Congress leader for Congress Working Committee election.

When asked by several media organisations to respond to the allegations that have emerged in the Delhi-based magazine, the government officials, as expected, denied the allegations as baseless.

OneIndia News