Following revelations by the Mumbai Police that the phones of Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) party leader Eknath Khadse, along with other leaders, were tapped on the pretext of their being “anti-social elements”, Mr. Raut lashed out at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled Centre for offering protection to police officers “who were working for one party”.
Alluding to senior IPS officer Rashmi Shukla, who was the State Intelligence Department (SID) chief during the phone tapping incident, Mr. Raut said that the numbers were classified as belonging to anti-social elements and that the phones were tapped during the critical period when the tripartite Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition of the Shiv Sena, the NCP and the Congress was being formed.
According to the Mumbai Police’s investigations, Mr. Khadse’s phone was tapped for 67 days while Mr. Raut’s was tapped for 60 days.
“Be it Eknath Khadse, Nana Patole (head of the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee), or myself, our phone numbers were categorised as belonging to those of ‘anti-social elements’ and our phones were tapped at a time when the MVA was in the process of being formed. We were labelled ‘drug peddlers’ and ‘gangsters’ and so on. So, someone was keeping a watch on us and listening to our conversations while the new coalition as being formed. Our privacy was breached,” Mr. Raut said.
“The police officer, whom we expect to work in a neutral manner, was instead showing loyalty to a particular party,” said the Sena leader, hinting at Ms. Shukla. “The officer is now being given protection by the Centre, which is really unfortunate and most inappropriate,” he added.
The MVA was formed in late 2019 after the Shiv Sena fell out with its former ally, the BJP, despite the duo fighting the Assembly election together that year and winning the mandate to form the government. After bickering over the Chief Minister’s post, the Sena severed its 25-year-old ties with the BJP to ally with the ideologically opposed NCP led by Sharad Pawar, and the Congress.
Since then, the three-party MVA has accused the BJP of attempting to destabilise the Maharashtra Government, particularly in the wake of continuous raids by Central enforcement agencies.
In July 2021, the MVA government formed a three-member committee comprising the Maharashtra Director General of Police, the State Intelligence Department (SID) Commissioner, and the Additional Commissioner of Police (Special Branch-1, Mumbai) to probe the alleged illegal tapping of phones between 2015 to 2019. The probe committee, in its report, pointed the finger of blame on Ms. Shukla and noted that she had not followed the Centre’s rules and guidelines on phone surveillance
