The Gujarat government has launched an investigation into allegations Chief Minister Narendra Modi ordered invasive surveillance of a woman architect, in a case his opponents say shows a tendency to abuse power.
Modi, the prime ministerial candidate of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, has topped several recent opinion polls ahead of general elections in six months, but the allegations could tarnish his carefully crafted image as a pro-business and graft-free administrator.
Two investigative websites - Cobrapost and Gulail - said earlier this month that they had access to 267 audio recordings that had been handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation.
They said the recordings contain telephone conversations from 2009 in which Modi’s former junior home minister Amit Shah orders a police officer to track the woman.
It was unclear why the woman was being followed.
“A commission has been formed to find out the truth in connection to these allegations,” said Gujarat cabinet minister Nitin Patel.
The BJP has dismissed the charges as part of “dirty tricks” in the lead-up to the elections.
The Congress said an investigation by the Gujarat government could not be fair and has instead been demanding an investigation by a Supreme Court judge into what the local media has called “snoopgate.”
In the phone recordings, the person alleged to be home minister Shah asks the surveillance to be carried out for his “saheb” - the respectful Hindi word for boss - when giving orders to police officer G L Singhal, who secretly recorded the conversations. Modi is not named.
The woman was tailed as she visited shopping malls, ice-cream parlours, hospitals and airports, according to the websites’ expose.
Senior members of the Congress dismissed the panel as a whitewash that could prevent a proper investigation taking place.
