Congress using disgruntled cops, officers to target Modi: Jaitley

Amid the sparring over illegal snooping row, BJP today charged the Congress with using "disgruntled" police officers and civil servant salong with tweets and taunts by "second row leaders" to target Narendra Modi as it was "cornered" in the leadership battle.

"They (Congress) are back to their old game of detecting a disgruntled police officer or a civil servant and getting him to make absurd charges," senior party leader Arun Jaitley said a day after suspended IAS officer Pradeep Sharma pleaded the Supreme Court to order a CBI probe against Modi in the snooping controversy.

"This didn't work when Sanjeev Bhatt (the suspended IPS officer) did it. It won't work with Congress party's newly discovered suspended civil servant (Pradeep Sharma) doing it," Jaitley said in a Facebook posting.

Congress has demanded Modi's resignation as the Gujarat Chief Minister over the alleged illegal surveillance of a woman by state agencies and sought a probe by a sitting Supreme Court judge into the issue.

Jaitley prefaced his remarks today by observing that Congress is on the back foot as far as the leadership battle is concerned as "Rahul Gandhi is no match" for Modi.

"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.

He further went on to add that Congress was in a "dilemma" as it had no answer on how to deal with Modi, who is BJP's prime ministerial candidate for the Lok Sabha polls.

"In Gujarat, the party has flip-flopped. Either they are very aggressive against him or alternatively they pretend that he doesn't exist. In the 2012 state assembly elections they could not project a leader to match him. They hired a young brand Ambassador to counter him," he said.