Describing as a joke the reported explanation of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) that the adhesives found in Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s office were chewing gums, BJP top leader Ms Sushma Swaraj today called for a serious probe in the security breach in Mukherjee’s offices.

Addressing the national media in Delhi, Swaraj said the security breach resorted to in the offices of Mukherjee and those of his staff can be compared to the American Watergate scandal that forced the then USA president to resign.

Reports in the last two days said Pranab Mukherjee requested Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh in September last to order a secret investigation into the presence of adhesives in his office and in the offices of his officers. The reports indicated that some body was obviously spying on him and his officers.

Sushma Swaraj asserted that the spying must have been done by the government itself or some corporate houses must have resorted to this unethical practice against the finance minister.

“In any case, it is serious. If the government has done it, it indicates mistrust among ministers and if it is the work of the corporate people, it is a big security lapse,” she said.

Pranab asks media not to waste time

Pranab Mukherjee said on Tuesday that the IB probed the possible security breach in his office but found nothing.

Again today, he told newspersons outside his office in Delhi the BJP charge that the government was spying on him is very much bogus. “Kindly don’t waste your precious time on this useless thing,” he asked journalists.