The Chief Minister of Karnataka BS Yediyurappa has ordered an investigation into the illegal phone tapping scandal in the state after receiving several complaints about the issue.
The Karnataka phone tapping scandal is getting murkier after several top shot politicians from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and government officials alleged that their private conversations were illegally acquired on the approval of the previous Congress-JD(S) coalition.
CM Yediyurappa told the state Chief Secretary TM Vijay Bhaskar that an investigation needs to be conducted over the matter to wash out the people responsible for this and hold them accountable for the illegal use of government machinery. Union minister DV Sadananda Gowda has also demanded an investigation over the matter. He said that no one should resort to such means as it is illegal and whoever is responsible for this will be revealed.
The probe has been initiated after several leaders of the saffron party including R Ashoka, Tejasvi Surya and former JD(S) leader and disqualified MLA AH Vishwanath requested the state CM to conduct a detailed investigation over the allegations of phone tapping.
It is alleged that the former CM HD Kumaraswamy was the man behind the alleged phone tapping. However, he has denied the accusations saying that there was no need for him to tap the phone calls to save the government. He claimed that he would never do such a thing as he has been repeatedly saying that the chief minister's post is not forever.
The phone calls of several politicians from the Congress, JD(S) and the BJP were illegally recorded. Not just politicians, people close to the politicians, journalists covering political stories and senior police officers were also tapped continuously for months until the recent Lok Sabha elections.
R Ashoka said that he had complained about the phone tappings about six months ago but then the coalition government headed by HDK had denied it.
Bengaluru police commissioner Bhaskar Rao had commissioned a probe into the illegal phone tapping on August 8 after a leaked conversation allegedly from his phone was made public. The alleged clip contained conversation between Rao and another man named Faraz from Delhi, lobbying for his current post with Congress leaders.
