Congress back to old game to counter Modi: Jaitley

BJP leader Arun Jaitley Sunday accused the Congress of using Gujarat cadre IAS officer Pradeep Sharma to make "absurd charges" against state Chief Minister Narendra Modi in the alleged snooping on a woman architect.

"They are back to their old game of detecting a disgruntled police officer or a civil servant and getting him to make absurd charges," the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader said referring to Sharma, who has approached the Supreme Court seeking a Central Bureau of Investigation probe in the matter.

"This didn't work when Sanjeev Bhatt (a suspended IPS officer, who is an important witness against Modi in 2002 riots case) did it. It won't work with the Congress party's newly discovered suspended civil servant doing it," he said on his Facebook page.

Jaitley said in the 2012 state assembly elections, the Congress could not project a leader to match Modi and hired a young brand ambassador to counter him.

"How does the Congress party deal with Narendra Modi? It is a question that the party is unable to answer. In Gujarat, the party has flip-flopped. Either they are very aggressive against him or alternatively they pretend that he doesn't exist," he said.

"This dilemma obviously continues in Delhi. (Congress vice president) Rahul Gandhi is no match. The Congress is on the back foot as far as the leadership battle is concerned. Today it is under the impression that tweets, taunts and press conferences of its second row leaders will match Modi. This hasn't worked," he said.

Seeking a CBI inquiry in the snooping case, Sharma accused Modi and former minister of state for home Amit Shah of violating various laws in the surveillance. He also said that Modi harboured a totally misconceived apprehension that he has the information regarding a VCD, the contents of which, if disclosed in public, would be detrimental to his image.

It was because of this "totally misconceived apprehension" that though in his three decades of service record, there was noting against him but in two years from 2010 to 2012 he was implicated in six cases, Sharma claimed.

According to the expose by the investigative websites Cobrapost and Gulail.com, the woman's movements and her conversations were being traced by the Gujarat government.