Even as the Congress waits for President Pranab Mukherjee to take a call on the demand of its Mahila Morcha and other women groups to get the Gujarat snooping case investigated by a Supreme Court judge, the party slammed the State government on Wednesday for constituting a “Modi bachao commission” of inquiry to cover up the incident.
A Congress leader said it had been two days since the appeal was made to the President and the party would wait for his response. “We do not know if the President has sought a report from the Goa Governor or not.”
Questioning the constitution of a two-member panel by the Gujarat government, party spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala termed it a “poor yet concerted attempt to hoodwink the people of India and a desperate attempt to bury the truth.”
He said the pertinent question was whether Chief Minister Narendra Modi and the former Home Minister, Amit Shah, could be judged in “their own courts.” The terms of reference of the probe panel too, he claimed, were aimed at sweeping the issue under the carpet. Clause 2, 3 and 6 required the panel to look into the issue of security, while Clause 5 sought to unveil a conspiracy in the release of tapes when none existed, Mr. Surjewala said.
Instead of looking into the violation of the right to privacy of the woman and other laws such as the Telegraph Act, the appointments were made in a manner that the credibility of the panel was suspect, the Congress spokesperson said. While one of the members had taken three years to examine the alleged bungling of public funds by the State government, the other was a beneficiary of appointment of those the commission was supposed to probe.
The Congress leader said even if the father of the girl had asked for a security cover for her, the question remains if the level of security was commensurate with the level sought.
Mahila Morcha president Shobha Oza accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of politicising a personal case like that of Tarun Tejpal while seeking to pass off a political conspiracy like the snooping incident as a personal one. As for the Congress stand on the two cases, she said: “We have zero tolerance towards crime against women. We do not defend any criminal act. Even in the Tejpal case, we had praised both the Goa Chief Minister and the Home Minister for initiating the probe.”
