Chandrababu Naidu accuses Andhra Pradesh CM of phone tapping; seeks PM’s intervention

Naveen S Garewal

Tribune News Service

Hyderabad, August 17

Former Andhra Pradesh chief minister and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) national president N Chandrababu Naidu, on Monday, charged the YSR Congress Party, led by Chief Minister YS Jaganmohan Reddy, of resorting to massive phone tapping in order to perpetrate and foist a “jungle raj” in the state.

Naidu urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to order an inquiry by a competent authority of the Government of India into the alleged massive tapping of phones in Andhra Pradesh.

“The Centre should take stringent action so as to prevent the Jagan Reddy-led Yuvajana Shramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP) and some private persons from resorting to such illegal activities that pose a threat to national security,” Naidu said.

In a letter to Narendra Modi, the TDP chief said the ruling party in Andhra Pradesh, as well as private individuals, were using sophisticated technology and illegal software to tap the phones belonging to the Opposition leaders, judges, journalists and social activists.

“This is a violation of Articles 19 and 21 of the Constitution that provides for Fundamental Rights of the citizens. The ruling YSRCP was using illegal tactics to protect and preserve its power by intimidating and blackmailing the opponents and dissenting voices. These illegal activities were posing a serious threat to the right to privacy in the state,” Naidu said in the letter.

Naidu also wrote that even private individuals were using cutting edge technology and equipment to unlawfully tap phones.

“If these nefarious activities were not put to an end, they would proliferate and emerge as a bigger threat to national security and the sovereignty of the country as a whole. If the governments and private persons involved in such illegal activities were not restrained, they would attack and undermine the democratic institutions that were painstakingly built over decades of hard work in the country,” Naidu added.

As per the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885 (Sec 5 (2)) and the Information Technology Act 2000 (Sec 69), phone tapping is to be strictly used only in times of a threat to national security or the country’s sovereignty or to national integration or when friendly relations with foreign countries are under threat.

Naidu said systematic attacks were made on the State Election Commission (SEC), Andhra Pradesh Public Service Commission (APPSC) and other institutions. Threats were being issued to Opposition leaders, judges, media, social activists and all those who raised a dissenting voice against the ruling party’s excesses, he added.