Amar gets Jaya backing

Jayalalithaa said she felt that her telephones were also being tapped by the Centre. ‘‘I have so far refrained from making this public, because I knew that there would be a flat denial by the Centre,’’ she said.

Terming the alleged tapping ‘‘shocking and outrageous’’, Jayalalithaa said that it was ‘‘shocking’’ to see the level to which the Central government ‘‘can sink in trying to settle scores with its political opponents’’.

‘‘Political adversaries should be faced politically, that is, in electoral battles and not through this kind of underhand surveillance.’’

‘‘It also raises the question that if this can happen to Amar Singh, it can happen to every Opposition leader in the country. Does it mean that all those who do not agree with the policies of the Central government have to be treated as enemies and hounded as dreaded criminals,’’ she asked.

The evidence (in Amar Singh’s case) was ‘‘clinching and unassailable. Such matters were taking place with impunity in our country after the UPA government assumed office. It is time to put a stop to such nefarious and underhand practices which have no place in a democracy,’’ she said.

Amar Singh also said that he did not have any faith either in Delhi Police or CBI as ‘‘both of them working under UPA government’’ and reiterated the demand for an inquiry into the episode by a group of non-Congress chief ministers or by the police of non-Congress governments. ‘‘I am prepared for an investigation even by the Tamil Nadu police,’’ he said.

Jayalalithaa also likened the phone-tapping episode to the Watergate scandal in the US in the 1970s, which had led to the resignation of Richard Nixon as President, and said the Centre should own responsibility at once.

Mulayam should make records public: Laloo

NEW DELHI: RJD chief and Railways Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav on Thursday sought to pull a sharp one on UP Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav and Amar Singh by demanding that their tape-recorded conversations be made public. Laloo told reporters here that the nation should know what was there in the tapes. ‘‘The tapes should be played publicly within a week,’’ he said.

The RJD leader said that Congress president Sonia Gandhi was being wrongly blamed for tapping of Amar Singh’s telephone. Congress general secretary Ambika Soni had taunted Mulayam yesterday by asking what was there on the tapes which agitated him and his ‘‘fund-raiser’’ Amar Singh.