With new reports of snooping, will BJP still defend Amit Shah?

Amid calls from across parties for a probe into the snooping allegations against former Gujarat minister Amit Shah, reports now say phone tapping has been rampant in Gujarat, with a DGP discovering this year that as many as 93,000 mobile phones’ call data records had been obtained without his knowledge since December 2012. [caption id=“attachment_123744” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Amit Shah. PTI[/caption] A report in The Hindustan Times says agencies such as the Gujarat Police, the IB, the Anti-Terror Squad and the Crime Branch are all routinely conduct illegal surveillance, either for investigations or at the instance of their political bosses. “The extent of snooping is so pervasive that Gujarat’s director general of police Amitabh Pathak was shocked to learn in May that his own police officials had obtained call detail records of as many as 93,000 mobile phone numbers without his knowledge since December 2012,” the report said. The report also quotes from an affidavit filed by former IPS officer RB Sreekumar before the Justice Nanavati Commission probing the 2002 riots case in which he states that he was asked to rap the phones of BJP leader Haren Pandya and Congress leader Shankersingh Vaghela. Sreekumar had been posted as additional director general of the state IB during this period. Pandya, who had alleged complicity of the Modi governmen tin the riots, was later murdered in 2003. During Amit Shah’s stint as minister of state for home between 2003 and 2010, there were maximum complaints of illegal surveillance, according to the report, mainly of Modi’s rivals. It adds that proper procedures to seek permission for such surveillance was never followed. This report in the Times of India published in 2005 quotes BJP MLA Gordhan Zadaphia complaining about the Modi government engaging in illegal tapping of phones of MLAs and MPs. The report also said intelligence officers believed that official taps on phones was time-consuming and required several levels of permissions. It becomes more fruitful in this scenario to take the service provider into confidence and come to an “unofficial arrangement’’, the report said. Former Gujarat chief minister Keshubhai Patel had also accused the Modi government of tapping his phones. The new reports come even as the BJP struggles to defend allegations by two investigative portals, Cobrapost and Gulail, who claimed on 15 November that Shah had ordered illegal surveillance of a woman at the behest of one “saheb”. They had released a taped conversation purportedly between Shah and an IPS officer to back their claim, but said that its authenticity could not be confirmed. The BJP later said that the ‘snooping’ had been done at the behest of the girls father, and senior leaders dismissed the entire controversy as a’dirty trick’ by the Congress. None of these explanations have found much favour with opposition members and activists, who have slammed the party for what they say, are attempts to cover up a clearly illegal activity. Modi himself has said that the Congress is targeting him as it cannot digest his popularity . How the party and Modi will respond to the latest reports remains to be seen. Will Amit Shah face any flak? Or will the BJP stick to its stand that it has done nothing wrong, and they are the victims of a larger political conspiracy? Chances are that they will, because to back down now would be nothing short of political suicide.