Govt drops snoopgate probe

New Delhi: The Congress said on Tuesday that the Central government had dropped its move to name a judge to head the commission set up to probe snoopgate, as it did not want to give an impression of political vendetta to go around as suggested by the allies.

"I talked to the Home Minister in the morning. Nobody should feel that they are carrying out a political vendetta. If there has been a delay and then somebody feels that there is some vendetta, we do not want any such charge of vendetta against us. The allies have their own views. That is why we did not move ahead. What was wrong in that? Let the next government carry it out," Law Minister and Congress leader Kapil Sibal said at the AICC briefing.

Late last year, the Union Cabinet had decided to set up the Commission to probe the snooping of a young woman by Gujarat police allegedly at the instance of Chief Minister Narendra Modi. A controversy had broken out last week when senior ministers including Sibal and Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde had said that a judge would be named into the surveillance, before May 16 when the counting of votes in the Lok Sabha elections would be taken up. The BJP slammed the UPA saying it was practising vendetta out of desperation of defeat in the elections.