Bose family snooping: Congress, BJP trade barbs

De-classified intelligence documents indicating Congress governments ordered intensive surveillance on Subhas Chandra Bose's family triggered a political slugfest on Friday with Congress terming it "selective leaks" by the NDA government to "distort history" and the BJP hit back at its penchant for "snooping".

The kin of the freedom fighter, meanwhile, sought a judicial probe into the spying and demanded that the Narendra Modi government declassify the secret files related to Netaji, and the clan.

The documents, reportedly disclosed by the union home ministry, revealed that the government snooped on the Bose family members between 1948 and 1968 with Intelligence Bureau (IB) officers intercepting, reading and recording their correspondence.

The Congress, however, refuted the revelation, claiming that "a systematic and sinister propaganda of selective leaks and half truths has been unleashed by current BJP Government to malign national icons."

But union minister Nirmala Sitharaman hit back, saying: "The BJP today is definitely taking a stand that this is really surprising and shocking. Already on the dimension of snooping, research that has come out, I certainly feel that till 2010-11, snooping has become a part of Congress' DNA...We express our concern."

Seemingly skeptical, Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi questioned the government's intention behind revealing "half truth and not the full information", while noting that the Prime Minister's Office had earlier refused to disclose records related to the freedom fighter's death on grounds of national security.

Recounting the names of the leaders who served as prime ministers as well as home ministers during the period in question, he claimed that "every attempt is being made to distort history".

"In making these allegations with a blind-eyed anti-Nehruvian agenda, the BJP-led government (and its ilk) forgot who were the prime ministers that time. So the allegation is against Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Gulzarilal Nanda and Indira Gandhi... commonly acknowledged as national icons," he said.

Noting the protocol observed by the IB, Singhvi said its sleuths report to the home minister and cannot move without his authorization.

By implication, therefore, "the allegation by the BJP is against Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Govind Ballabh Pant, Yashwantrao Chavan (home ministers of the period). Nobody is sacred for cheap politics," he said.

Taking on the Congress, senior BJP leader Subramanian Swamy claimed that the revelations "proves that Nehru was scared of Subhas Chandra Bose. This shows how paranoid Nehru was about Subhas Chandra Bose".

Meanwhile, the documents have been placed in the public domain at the National Archives here. An official there however told a news channel that the files were "not available for now".