Cong leaders' phones being tapped to know poll strategies: K'taka min

Bengaluru: Karnataka Home Minister Ramalinga Reddy on Friday claimed that phone calls of Congress leaders were being tapped to get details of their strategies for the May 12 assembly polls and blamed BJP president Amit Shah for it. Reddy claimed it has been on for the past three months.

“For the past fortnight, the tapping is happening for almost 18 hours a day. There are teams from Gujarat, Jaipur and Delhi involved in the activity and boys associated with BJP and its affiliated organisations are working in these teams from Karnataka,” he said.

Blaming Shah for the phone tapping, the minister claimed that the teams were tasked with recording the conversation and then translating it in Hindi or English.

The minister alleged that the plan was to use the conversation to defame them and accused the Centre of trying every strategy to trouble the Congress leaders in Karnataka.

Reddy also alleged that while phone tapping was in progress on the one hand, the Centre has been using the Income Tax department to intimidate Congress leaders and their supporters.

“There is nothing wrong in raiding those who are evading taxes but when people like Congress MLA and candidate from Anekal B Shivanna are targetted, it becomes even more evident that the centre was trying to harass them. What did the I-T sleuths get from the raids on Shivanna’s premises? A mere Rs 4.75 lakh. I-T has been used to intimidate Congress leaders and their supporters,” Reddy said.