Phone-tapping row: Shekhawat must give voice sample, says Rajasthan Congress

JAIPUR:  The demand for voice samples of Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat has resurfaced in Rajasthan. Congress workers took to streets in Jaipur on Thursday and demanded the minister’s resignation. 

The voice samples are part of a phone-tapping row in which Shekhawat is accused of trying to topple the state Congress government last year when Sachin Pilot had rebelled last year. Shekhawat was purportedly heard talking to some Congress leaders in the leaked audio clips.

The latest ruckus follows a directive from a local court in Jaipur on Wednesday. The court allowed the state’s Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) to take voice samples of the Union minister as well as of the alleged middleman Sanjay Jain in the audio tapes case. 

Congress supporters of Mahesh Joshi, the Congress chief whip in the state Assembly, demanded that Shekhawat provide his voice sample so that the truth behind “toppling of the Congress government” can come out.  “I hope that after the court directive, Shekhawat will provide his voice sample to the ACB instead of appealing in a higher court,” said Joshi.

The Shekhawat-Joshi spat escalated in recent weeks after the Delhi Police sent a notice to Joshi asking him to come to Delhi on June 24 for questioning in the phone tapping case lodged on a complaint by the Minister. Joshi has skipped the summons.

Shekhawat recently asserted that the state police had never summoned him to provide his voice sample and that he was ready for it if asked. Legally, nobody can be forced to give his voice sample, yet it will imply a loss of face for the Union minister as he had recently announced that he was willing to give his voice sample.