You're Free To Probe: Devendra Fadnavis Rejects Phone Tapping Allegations

Former Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Friday said that his government didn’t give any orders to tape phones of Opposition leaders, adding that the current Uddhav Thackeray-led Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government was free to investigate the matter. "Phone tapping is not the culture of Maharashtra. My government had not given any such orders," Fadnavis, who is the Leader of Opposition in the state Legislative Assembly, said in a statement.

The BJP leader also sought to question the credibility of the state government and argued that a Shiv Sena leader was the minister of state for home during his government. "The whole country knows the credibility of those who have levelled such allegations," Fadnavis, who was the chief minister of the state between 2014 and 2019, said.

"The state government is free to probe the allegations with the help of any machinery. People of Maharashtra know the truth. A Shiv Sena leader was the minister of state for home during my tenure," he added.

His remarks come a day after Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh alleged that the Fadnavis dispensation had misused the government machinery to tap the phones of opposition leaders, especially during the formation of the MVA government.

Deshmukh said that the cyber cell of the Maharashtra Police has been directed to probe the complaints of phone tapping and snooping of Opposition leaders between 2014-19 when Fadnavis-led BJP government was in power. "There is no doubt that the previous dispensation has misused the government machinery to tap of phones of leaders from opposition parties," he said.

The Maharashtra home minister also said that the Devendra Fadnavis government had sent some officials to Israel to study the snooping software. "There were reports that some officers were sent to Israel to study the snooping software. We are finding out who had gone to Israel and whether there was any official engagement," Deshmukh said.