JAIPUR: Amid another round of bedlam in the assembly over the phone-tapping controversy, the Rajasthan government reiterated on Wednesday that the privacy of elected representatives was never breached during the political crisis triggered by Sachin Pilot’s revolt against CM Ashok Gehlot.
Parliamentary affairs minister Shanti Dhariwal said the entire Gehlot cabinet would resign if the allegation of phonetapping was proved, suggesting that BJP was flogging a dead horse simply to deflect from Union minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat’s alleged conspiracy to topple the Congress government in July 2020.
Responding to the opposition’s statements during a zero hour discussion, Dhariwal recounted how the special operations group (SOG) of the state police “stumbled” on recorded evidence of the attempts to destabilise the Gehlot government while intercepting calls of arms smugglers. He said Vijay Kumar Rai, an inspector in the voice logger section of the SOG, reported a phone conversation about the alleged plan to “poach” Congress MLAs on July 10, 2020. Congress chief whip Mahesh Joshi registered an FIR based on media reports and the anti-corruption bureau is still investigating the case, he said.
Dhariwal alleged that contrary to what BJP had been trying to portray, it was the Union government that tapped the phones of “90,000 people”.
BJP members rushed to the well of the House to demand a CBI inquiry into the allegation, twice leading to adjournments. The controversy got a new life after the state administration’s reply to a starred August 2020 question by BJP MLA Kalicharan Saraf belatedly appeared on the assembly portal.