Mayawati to Modi: Come clean on snooping row, avoid tall claims

Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati on Friday asked Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi to avoid making tall claims and come clean on the snooping row.

"Instead of making tall claims and criticizing Uttar Pradesh, Modi should come out openly in the snooping row which happened in his own state," she told media here.

"Why is Modi not speaking up about the snooping row? He needs to give answers," she said.

In an alleged taped conversation between former Gujarat home minister Amit Shah and Gujarat police officer G L Singhal aired by news portals Cobrapost and Gulail, Shah was instructing Singhal to closely monitor the movements of the woman referred to in the report as "Madhuri", which is not her real name.

Shah, who is currently heading the BJP election campaign in Uttar Pradesh, is alleged to have misused his powers and the state police machinery for the illegal surveillance of a young woman in August 2009 at the behest of his "saheb."

Mayawati further said: "Wherever Modi goes in UP, he repeats the same old speech of finding faults. Why did BJP not take steps when they ruled the state?."

Modi on Thursday said the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) have borrowed vote bank politics from the ruling Congress party at the centre and have embellished it.

Addressing a rally in Agra, the Gujarat Chief Minister said: "By nature, the Congress is a divisive party. They believe in divide and rule. Samajwadi Party and BSP have borrowed vote-bank politics from the Congress and have embellished it. It is a result of Congress's sins that Samajwadi Party, BSP have been spawned."

Earlier addressing a rally in Bahraich, Modi hit out at the SP and the BSP and said that the two parties are competing with each other to collect criminals for their party.

"SP, BSP are competing to collect criminals, and make money through corruption. Two BJP MLAs were wrongly arrested and put behind bars. I want to ask those 'shehenshah's' in power in Uttar Pradesh, what was the reason you jailed two of our MLAs and your case did not stand in a court of law? For vote bank politics, they don't want to keep criminals in jail, and want to imprison innocent people," he said.

"In Uttar Pradesh when there is power failure it makes no news, but when there is electricity supply it makes news. There is a competition as to who has the most number of criminals in their parties, there is competition on corruption," he added.