By IANS,
New Delhi: Even as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Wednesday demanded a full-fledged probe in the adhesives found in Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s office, the minister dismissed reports of spying as “bogus”.
“It’s bogus. Don’t waste your time on this,” Mukherjee told reporters when he was asked about the opposition’s comments.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has demanded a probe in the incident, with Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj calling the “chewing gum theory” of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) a “joke”.
“IB’s chewing gum theory is a joke. A childish argument like this…if they want the country to believe that it was a chewing gum, people will laugh,” the BJP leader told reporters.
“From where such intelligent chewing gum came, which goes to the finance minister’s room, his OSD’s room, advisor’s room, to the conference hall, and sticks? Before giving such argument, the IB must think,” she said.
“I request the government that the letter he had written should be taken seriously, and to do a thorough investigation,” she added.
Sushma Swaraj also questioned whether it was the government or someone from the corporate sector responsible for the spying.
“There are two questions in this incident – whether the spying was being done by the government itself or some corporate house was getting it done,” she said.
“In both situations, the matter is serious. If the government was doing this, it is an example of the growing mistrust between the ministers in the government. And if it was being done by a corporate house, it is a big lapse in the security cordon,” she added.
Communist Party of India (CPI) member D. Raja compared it with an American thriller.
“It looks like an American thriller, bugging in president’s office, bugging in some official’s office, that has come to India,” Raja said.
Mukherjee Tuesday said the IB had probed a possible security breach in his office but found nothing.
According a newspaper report, Mukherjee wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in September last year, asking him to order a “secret inquiry” after some adhesives were found planted in 16 key locations in his office.
However, the IB downplayed the incident and said the adhesive was a “sort of chewing gum”, the report added.