On July 26, a report in Sunday Guardian claimed that “high power listening devices” were found at the residence of Road Transport and Highways Minister, Nitin Gadkari. The report states that sophisticated listening devices were accidentally discovered at Gadkari’s residence but when mainstream news channels picked up on the news, Gadkari tweeted this:

Gadkari’s choice of words is interesting because while he calls the report “highly speculative”, he does not deny that listening devices were found.

According to the Sunday Guardian report, preliminary investigations concluded that the bugs could belong to foreign agencies, particularly the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA), because of their make and build. It is old news that the NSA was authorised by a US court in 2010 to carry out surveillance on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), but while these revelations should have drawn a response at that time from the UPA government, the Congress-led government was mum on the matter, choosing only to reiterate that India and the US were close allies.

Given the importance that successive Indian governments have placed on the need for strong Indo-US ties, it comes as no surprise that the present government has so far refused to comment on the issue.

What does comes as a surprise though, is that ex-PM and professional statue-impersonator Manmohan Singh actually spoke on the issue. Singh broke his usual silence to demand an investigation and asked the Centre to discuss the issue in Parliament. Various other Congress members have echoed his sentiments. Given that these statements come a good four years after they should have, this smacks more of political posturing and gamesmanship rather than genuine concern.

This is not the first time a politician has been bugged. In June 2011, there were reports that the Ministry of Finance were bugged. Then in 2012, reports surfaced that then Defence Minister AK Antony’s office had been bugged.

If  Sunday Guardian’s  report is true, it is noticeably strange that it is the BJP who is down-playing it and Congress is asking for a probe. What is the BJP covering up and what does the Congress know that it wants exposed through a probe? If indeed the listening devices have been placed by the CIA or NSA, are Indo-US relations playing a role here? Both Congress and BJP need to stop playing hide and seek and communicate the truth to end speculation.