Shimla: Union home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, a little while ago here, reiterated that the government was going ahead to appoint a judge to head a commission that will go into the snoopgate case, which allegedly involves illegal surveillance of a woman architect by the Narinder Modi government in Gujarat.
“It is a cabinet decision that was taken much before the elections were announced,” said Shinde denying that the government was being vindictive or making such an appointment was any violation of the election code of conduct.
“Such brazen intrusion into the privacy of women, what will happen to other girls in the country,” he said? The commission will do its job, he added.
Modi’s tea vendor tale only a emotional story
Rubbishing the story of ‘Modi having started out as a small time tea vendor’ Shinde labeled it as an effort to touch an emotional chord with voters at election time.
The senior minister, on an election campaign tour here recalled, “I have known Modi from the mid 1990’s when he was BJP incharge for Himachal and I was the congress incharge of the state. We met many times then also and many more times since then, but never has the tea vendor story been narrated. It has only come up in the past six months.”
The defiant congressman said that post 16 May, a UPA III government under Sonia Gandhi’s leadership would be formed for the Modi for PM campaign was nothing more than the India Shinning Campaign of 2004 that burst on the day election results were announced.
“Rahul Gandhi is our prime ministerial candidate,” Shinde responded to a media query.
“A parliamentary election which normally should be about policy, national and international issues,” said Shinde, “but the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate has lowered the discourse by making personal attacks on Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi.”
About nabbing Dawood Ibrahim, the home minister said that even the Atal Bihari Vajpayee led NDA government had failed to get hold of him despite having made tall claims.
No threat to Modi, security beefed up – Shinde
Security of Narinder Modi has been beefed up and all necessary precautions have been taken, union home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde said here and at the same time denied that there was any connection of the Chennai train blast to the threat perception of BJP’s prime ministerial candidate.
Talking to reporters here the minister said that the Tamil Nadu government had decided to get the train blast case investigated by state agencies and the National Investigative Agency (NIA) cannot take over the case unless the state government authorizes it.
The NIA had however been asked to make an inquiry into Monday’s mornings twin blasts at Chennai central station on the Bangalore-Guwahati Express, he added. A 22 year old woman was killed by the blast.
“There is no threat to Narinder Modi,” said Shinde.
The home minister also ruled out linking of the blasts or the violence in Assam at Kokrajhar and Baska to the ongoing parliamentary elections. “Polling in Assam and Tamil Nadu has already concluded, he said.
Ethnic violence erupted in the two villages of Assam under Bodoland Territorial Council on Thursday night in which several people, many of them women are reported to have been killed.
Till end of our term —- Oops
Shinde said that under UPA I & II unprecedented work had been done. Anti-corruption and violence against women law had been enacted and despite all odds the country’s growth rate was 4.5%, which was much better than most countries.
Against a total electricity generation capacity of 1.12 lakh MW till 2004, in 10 years of UPA government a capacity addition of 1.25 lakh MW had been made, claimed the minister who earlier was the power minister.
While throwing the power generation figures at the media, the ministers language slipped stating that till end of our term the generation was —– so and so —-. In a flash, however, he corrected himself saying “it still is our term.”
Photos by Ravinder Makhaik
As Editor, Ravinder Makhaik leads a team of media professionals at Hill Post.
Spanning a career of over two decades in mass communication, as a Documentary Filmmaker, TV journalist, Print Media journalist and with Online & Social Media, he brings with him a vast experience. He lives in Shimla.
