Opposition recalls phone-gate 1988

BANGALORE: Strongly condemning the alleged incident of phone tapping of Lokayukta Santhosh Hegde, Congress in Karnataka has demanded that Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa steps down owning moral responsibility.KPCC president Dr G Parameshwar termed the statement of Hegde that his phones had come under the scanner as a serious matter which needs to be probed.Suspecting the involvement of the chief minister in the alleged phone tapping followed by the leak of the Lokayukta report on mining, Parameshwar felt that Yeddyurappa should not continue in office for even a second after the Lokayukta’s revelations.Recalling that the late CM Ramakrishna Hegde, had to bow out from office after facing similar charges, the Congress leader urged Yeddyurappa to follow suit. If the head of institutions like the Lokayukta face such a situation, imagine the plight of the ordinary people under this government, Parameshwar said.He said that a meeting of senior party leaders has been convened tomorrow to discuss the two issues.Infringement of Privacy: HDK Former CM and JD(S) state president H D Kumaraswamy strongly condemned the alleged espionage on the Lokayukta, and said that the BJP government had been spying on the opposition leaders since March. Terming the phone tapping as infringement of privacy, Kumaraswamy felt that it also amounted to violation of the Constitutional obligations of the Government and CM.Urging the UPA government to intervene and initiate action to protect the fundamental rights of the people, Kumaraswamy opined that the Centre should not sit not sit silently on the issue.Former leader of the opposition in the Legislative Council V S Ugrappa in a strongly worded statement, said that phone tapping amounts to violation of Fundamental Rights under Articles 19 and 21 of the Indian Constitution.‘History to Repeat After 23 Years’“I think history is about to repeat itself in Karnataka, after 23 years,” said JD(S) general secretary and spokesperson Y S V Datta, while referring to the infamous phone tapping episode in August 1988 that brought about the downfall of the Ramakrishna Hegde-led government.Datta sought to strike a parallel between that incident and the tapping of telephones of Lokayukta Justice N Santosh Hegde, which according to him, was “despicable”.