The ruling Congress on Sunday faced a major embarrassment for persisting with a probe into ‘snoopgate’. Two of its key allies — the NCP and the NC — refused to toe the Government’s line and opposed the appointment of a judge on the judicial commission in the “dying hours” of the UPA dispensation.
In fact, NCP chief Sharad Pawar even called up Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to express his opposition to the Government’s move. His party colleague and Union Minister Praful Patel too had earlier made the NCP’s viewpoint clear saying: “When the results of the lok Sabha elections are due in two weeks’ time, where is the need for such an enquiryIJ” The NCP is the second largest constituent of the Congress-led UPA.
Echoing similar views, Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah in a series of tweets said, “Was talking to my dad last night and he felt the same way — setting up a commission of enquiry in the dying hours of UPA 2 is just wrong. If the decision to appoint a commission was taken in December, it should have been implemented. To appoint a judge five months later is wrong.”
“The UPA is strong enough to allow for different points of view and opinions. We do not have to agree with each other on every issue,” Omar pointed out. The opposition from within the UPA after the BJP described the move as a “low-level political trick” by the Congress “bereft of any real issues” put the Government on the back foot on the issue.
The Congress, however, declared that there will be “no compromise” as the issue involved women of the country and it will go ahead with naming the judge before May 16, when results of the lok Sabha elections will be out.
The UPA allies came out openly opposing the Congress and Government’s move a day after Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde and law Minister Kapil Sibal had announced that Government’s plan to name a judge for the enquiry before May 16. Union Minister Salman Khurshid said the allies’ views can be discussed within the Government. The UPA Government is seeking to probe “an illegal surveillance” on a young woman in Gujarat in 2009 allegedly at the behest of the Gujarat Reacting to NCP-NC opposition to the probe, BJP’s national spokesman MJ Akbar said, “It shows that UPA allies have found sense. They are seeing the truth. This is the politics of vendetta which is the speciality of Congress. Political parties do not want to get involved in it.”
Congress spokesperson and Mahila Congress chief Shoba Oza, however, maintained there was “no compromise” on going ahead with the probe as the matter does not involve any political party, but women of the country who constitute half of the population. Congress campaigners, particularly Rahul and Priyanka, have been repeatedly drawing attention to the snoopgate issue during their election rallies.