Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal on Wednesday hit out at the Congress for creating a ruckus in the ongoing monsoon session of Parliament over the ‘phone tapping’ issue, saying the party had a habit of raising allegations rather than discussing development issues.
“Our party has nothing to do with spying or phone tapping. If at all there is any party that has a habit of hatching spy conspiracies and destabilising popular governments, it is definitely the Congress,” said Mr. Lal, addressing a press conference here.
Mr. Lal condemned the Congress for supporting Amnesty International, the agency that had first published a report about snooping on personal data of ministers and journalists in India with the help of Israeli spyware Pegasus.
“In the last seven years, as the Narendra Modi-led government did not give Congress a chance to raise valid issues, therefore following its character, it hatched a conspiracy to defame and malign Indian democracy,” alleged Mr Lal.
“It is unfortunate how the Congress, rather than discussing development issues, is supporting international agencies and Left-Wing organisations to damage India’s democratic fabric. The Congress is not going to gain anything by doing these petty things to malign the image of India. The country is watching it,” he added.
“The Congress never believed in running the country democratically. Today, they are raising their voice against ‘phone tapping’ by believing the reports published in international agencies and a Left-Wing portal, but I would like to remind them that when the Congress was at the Centre, the party had used surveillance as a tool to spy on its own leaders,” alleged Mr. Lal.
Mr. Lal said that the Congress had always questioned the Haryana government over the increasing unemployment rate in the State, by referring to Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) reports, which he said “doesn’t even have any credibility.”
He said that under the ambitious scheme Parivar Pehchan Patra being run by the Citizen Resource Information Department, almost every family in the State had been registered, in which people had declared their unemployment at 6%.
“When the people of the State themselves are declaring the unemployment rate, on what basis are the Leaders of the Opposition saying that the unemployment rate is increasing in Haryana? asked Mr. Lal.