No question of tapping Shivakumar's phone: Bommai

Bengaluru: Rubbishing the phone-tapping allegations made by Karnataka Congress President D K Shivakumar, State Home Minister Basavaraj Bommai said that the BJP government was ”responsible” and would not resort to such acts.

Earlier in the day, Shivakumar raised doubts that his phone was being tapped and demanded an investigation. “You call my phone, you can’t hear the voice, all these days it was fine…. from morning I have tried about 20 calls, the voice is not audible,” he told reporters here.

Reacting to his remarks, Bommai, in a statement said, there was no question of tapping Shivakumar’s phone. “Ours is a responsible government and will not stoop to the low of tapping phones, also we don’t have that necessity. …If he could not speak to his party leaders when they called, he should inquire with telephone companies about it. Alleging it as telephone tapping is not right,” the Minister said.

Noting that the CBI was investigating the telephone tapping case during the previous Congres-JDS rule of which Shivakumar was a part, Bommai said, “such experiences can happen during their government. This government is not worried about Shivakumar’s activities, also there is no need for it.”

The BJP government in August last year had ordered a CBI probe into the alleged phone tapping during the Congress-JD(S) coalition government headed by H D Kumaraswamy in which Shivakumar was a cabinet Minister. The Kumaraswamy government that was rocked by dissidence was accused of tapping phones and spying on a number of people in a bid to avert its collapse.