The controversy surrounding the alleged secret surveillance of BJP leader Mr. Nitin Gadkari by placing bugging devices in his residence is getting increasingly mysterious. The first question is whether such listening devices were really placed in the Gadkari residence. A newspaper reported the fact. TV channels went to town with the report. BJP leader Mr. Subramaniam Swamy embellished the report with inputs. Mr. Gadkari at first said that the report was speculative. Later he categorically said that no bugging devices had been planted. Home Minister Mr. Rajnath Singh described the report as baseless. What is the truth? Were there or were there not bugging devices planted in the Gadkari residence? Consider both possibilities.

If no bugging devices were planted who created this false report and to what purpose? The main thrust of comment in media and among politicians is to blame America for spying on Indians. The Gadkari episode is treated as part of the exercise. That brings us to considering the second possibility. Bugging devices may have indeed been planted. According to this version they were planted last October during the thick of the poll campaign but were discovered only after the NDA government assumed power in May. If this version is correct the obvious question is why Mr. Rajnath Singh and belatedly Mr. Gadkari denied the fact. As victims of spying they should have publicized the truth.

Mr. Swamy and TV channels persist with the American spying theory. They base it on the exposures of American whistleblower Mr. Edward Snowden who revealed that India is one of the 33 countries that entered into third party agreement allowing the US National Security Agency (NSA) to access its telecom and internet networks. To conclude from this American involvement in the Gadkari bugging is silly. The third party agreement most likely is an extension of the surveillance by the UK-USA intelligence alliance initiated during World War Two. It comprises Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. The intelligence gathering by this group is primarily directed against terrorism although access might be misused by the Americans. More importantly its surveillance is limited to phone tapping and Internet hacking. What allegedly happened in Mr. Gadkari’s residence was physical planting of bugging devices that suggests a purely domestic enterprise.

What might one conclude if bugging did occur? There is only one credible explanation for the strange behaviour of BJP leaders who try to hide the fact. It may be noted that BJP leaders Mr. Rajnath Singh and Mr. Gadkari on one hand, and Mr. Swamy on the other, are both deflecting attention from the possibility that the bugging was done at the instance of Mr. Gadkari’s rivals within the BJP. Mr. Rajnath Singh denies the truth; Mr. Swamy draws an American red herring. If there is incurable discord within the party it should not attempt patchwork unity. That never delivers. Either ruthlessly discipline the party, or purge it of saboteurs. That works best in the long run.