Snooping row: Beware of 'skeletons in cupboard', BJP tells Cong

The Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday warned the Congress that it should desist from raking up the issue of the alleged snooping of a woman by Gujarat government, saying the party "would have nowhere to hide if the skeletons in its cupboards are brought in the open".

Party spokesperson Prakash Javadekar said that the Congress should let the matter rest now that the girl's father has written to the National Commission for Women stating that the Narendra Modi government had made security arrangements for his daughter with the family's consent.

"I think the Congress should stop at that. If personal attacks begin, the Congress has many skeletons in its cupboards and it will have nowhere to hide," Javadekar told reporters.

He remarked that, bereft of any issue, the ruling party had resorted to the "disgraceful" tactic of attacking the privacy of a family to target Modi.

"This is disgraceful and dangerous. Let's do politics of issues," he said.

The BJP also attacked Finance Minister P Chidambaram for his attack at Modi over the issue on Tuesday. Javadekar said that instead of attacking a family's privacy, Chidambaram should talk about price rise, the fall in the value of the rupee and rising unemployment.

"The first time I have heard that there is a request for providing security and in that wonderful state (Gujarat), security is provided by stalking and snooping," Chidambaram had said in his comments.

The Congress and the BJP have been sparring over the issue after two investigative portals released audio tapes allegedly of conversations between the then Gujarat home minister and Modi aide Amit Shah and an Indian Police Service officer discussing the surveillance of the woman.

The Congress said it was illegal and showed how individual liberty was being undermined by the Modi government while the BJP asserted that it was part of security arrangements for her with her father having sought the same.