The finger of suspicion points to U.S, which had indulged in such practices in the past. America’s top agency—National Security Agency, was authorized by a US court as far back 2010 to carry on surveillance on the BJP leaders along with five political organizations across the world. It is, therefore, fool hardly on the part of the BJP leaders to say that there was no bugging of Gadkari’s house. The least government can do is to order a thorough probe in the snooping on the houses of Gadkari and others BJP leaders too.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj rightly and timely took up the issue of snooping with visiting U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry. She later said “I raised the snooping issue with Kerry. People of India are angry. I told him that since we are friendly nations, it (spying) is not acceptable to us”. In his reply US Secretary of State said “We do not discuss intelligence matters in public”, and pointed out that “President Obama has already undertaken a unique and unprecedented review of our intelligence”.

Bugging is not a new phenomenon and Gadkari is not the only victim. Tapping phones in India is not that difficult at all for the people who are in a position to do so or have expertise; most telephone tapping is done for political or personal reasons. As far back in 1950, Rafi Ahmed Kidwai accused the then Home Minister Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel of tapping his phones. During the Congress split of 1969, members of the Congress(O) complained that Indira Gandhi was tapping their phones . During Rajiv Gandhi era, we have on the authority of a former IB official saying that not only were the then President Zail Singh’s phones tapped but that Rashtrapati Bhavan itself was bugged.

Not only individuals, but even high constitutional authorities were subjected to illegal snooping in the past by no less than two Congress prime ministers. A book by former joint director of the IB, late Maloy Krishna Dhar, reveals that Indira Gandhi was the first politician to have ordered illegal snooping. The IB spied on all her friends and tapped their conversation. According to account given by Dhar, Zail Singh’s conversation with Khalistani militant Bhindranwale was recorded. Rajiv Gandhi had asked the IB to snoop on Zail Singh.

The BJP had accused the UPA government in 2013 of spying on Opposition and had demanded an apology. Terming it as a serious matter, the Party demanded an answer from the then home minister, Sushil Kumar Shinde, who ordered the unauthorized surveillance. In a statement in the Rajya Sabha, Shinde had said that the BJP leader Arun Jaitely’s phone was not tapped, only the call details of his phone were accessed.

In September 2012, BJP leader Yashwant Sinha alleged that P. Chidambaram had ordered his phone tapping. Sinha said that Chidambaram snooped on him as he had raised the issue of the Aircel-Maxis deal. Sinha had accused Chidambaram of being involved in the Aircel-Maxis scam. In February 2012, an officer of the military intelligence found a monitoring device in the office of the then Defence Minister A K Antony. A high-level probe was initiated into the matter. Some of the most famous instances of bugging and snooping include Indira Gandhi’s snoop on Maneka Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi’s snooping on Zail Singh.

Industrial houses also did not escape bugging with big corporations spying on their competitors.

Embassies and other diplomatic posts are often the targets of bugging operations. The Soviet embassy in Ottawa was bugged by the Canadian government; extensive bugging of West German embassy in Moscow by the KGB was discovered by a German engineer. The Great Seal bug was hidden in a copy of the Great Seal of the United States, presented to the US ambassador in Moscow in 1946 and only discovered in 1952.

The United States Embassy in Moscow was bugged during its construction in the 1970s by Soviet agents posing as labourers. When discovered in early 1980s. it was found that even the concrete columns were riddled with bugs that that the building eventually had to be torn down and replaced with a new one, built with U.S. materials and labour. During the World War II, the Nazis took over a Berlin brothel and used concealed microphone to spy on patrons.

As early as 2001, the government of the People’s Republic of China discovered twenty-seven bugs in a Boeing 767 purchased as an official aircraft for the Chinese President In 2003, Alastair Campbell, who was director communication in UK, alleged in his memoirs that two bugs were discovered in the hotel room meant for visiting UK Prime Minister Tony Blair planted by Indian intelligence agencies. (IPA Service)