Former Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis denies phone tapping charges against his govt

The charges of phone tapping against the erstwhile Devendra Fadnavis government has snowballed into a big political issue.

A day after Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh ordered a probe into the alleged tapping of phones of NCP supremo Sharad Pawar and currrent CM and Shiv Sena President Uddhav Thackeray, Fadnavis had to come out with a clarification.

"This is absolutely baseless... it is not in our culture to tap phones of political opponents," Fadnavis, former chief minister and the current Leader of the Opposition, said.

Fadnavis, who also held the Home, Law & Judiciary departments, said that his government had never issued any such orders.

On the charges levelled by senior Congressman and former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijaya Singh, he said, "His credentials are known to people.... the truth must come out, if needed, go to Israel and investigate."

In a tweet, Singh had alleged: "Is Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray going to give details in public that who was behind snooping and tapping in Maharashtra. Who were the officers of Maharashtra Government who went to Israel to talk to NSO the brain behind malware Pegasus."

According to Deshmukh, he had received complaints that phones of Pawar, Thackeray and Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut were tapped during the government formation process.

Meanwhile, Raut said that he is not bothered as whatever he does, he does it openly being a disciple of late Bal Thackeray.