By NewsGram Staff Writer

New Delhi: The Ministry of Home Affairs has formed a seven-member intelligence team to track activities of the Aam Aadmi Party leaders, official sources said.

The sources revealed that Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, and leader Kumar Vishwas were on the radar of intelligence sleuths.

It has also come to notice that Home Minister Rajnath Singh wasn’t very keen to go ahead with the snooping but was forced to do so.

“Rajnath Singh doesn’t want to use IB resources for such activity but he has been told to do so by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” sources said.

Special eye on Kumar Vishwas

According to the sources, Kumar Vishwas may be the top target of the ministry as he is a soft rightist and is popular among the masses. Vishwas is extremely active on Twitter and has over 7 lakh followers. With an active and updated website called www.kumarvishwas.com, he provides his followers with various mediums of communication with him.

The Aam Aadmi Party leader is also close to RSS cadres. Last year, a few comments made in the organization’s praise by Vishwas had put AAP members into a state of confusion.

“If a particular organisation talks in favour of Muslims, is it communal? If an organisation speaks in favour of a larger majority, does it mean it is communal? You could have ideological differences on many levels. I don’t agree with many of their acts. But can you dismiss them? Can you dismiss the fact that they are a disciplined party,” Vishwas had said.

His popularity amongst the masses is seen as a major reason why the Central government is keen to keep an eye on Vishwas’s activities.

Double Standards

Recently, the Aam Aadmi Party had come under intense criticism by opposition parties for buying an ‘eavesdropping technology’ to help the Anti-Corruption Bureau in intelligence gathering.

“The state government’s launching of such a snooping exercise without any public knowledge is an attack on the independence of the citizens and a step ahead of his circular on media gag already stayed by the Delhi High Court”, Delhi BJP State President Satish Upadhyay had attacked the AAP then.

Questioning the intent of procuring such a high-tech surveillance equipment, Congress leader Ajay Maken had said, “Will this infrastructure be used to nab corrupt officials or will it be used to settle their own political scores?”.

It is ironical that the BJP which was highly opposed, more so critical of AAP’s move to augment Anti-Corruption Bureau’s working mechanism, has now adopted the same measure to snoop on the Aam Aadmi Party.

The integrity of our politicians is undoubtedly questionable, but the BJP can be asked the same question which Maken asked of the AAP; is the Ministry of Home Affairs being used to nab corrupt officials or to launch the BJP’s political vendetta against AAP?