Shimla (Himachal Pradesh) [India]: Jairam Thakur, the leader of the Opposition in the Himachal Pradesh Assembly has alleged that the state government is violating his privacy by flying drones above his residence.
“When I was leaving for the assembly today, I saw a drone above my house. This government is violating privacy. Phones are already being tapped, and now drones are also being used for surveillance. The CM should have answered on this but he was silent on this”, he said in a statement to journalists.
Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu has denied the claims of the government violating privacy by flying drones over the residence of Jairam Thakur and has said that the drones are being flown all over Shimla for GI mapping purposes. He further added that that if by any chance such an incident has occurred then the government will investigate the matter.
“The drone which is being flown is being used for GI mapping, it is being flown all over Shimla, why would we spy on him? He was a former CM. I have also assured him that if such things have happened we will investigate this, but he is creating an issue of this…They are left with no issues”, said CM Sukhu.
Jairam Thakur replied to the statement by the Chief Minister, claiming that this incident is not a lone incident and he has raised the matter in the state assembly, however, the government is not responding to the queries, after which the state’s opposition had staged a walkout.
“This incident is not just of today, we have seen it (drones) many times before. Today when the drone was seen, we thought it appropriate to say our point in the assembly but the irresponsible manner in which the Chief Minister responded is very unfortunate. We believe that the government is trying to suppress this matter and drones are being used for deliberate surveillance. When they were repeatedly taking this issue lightly, we walked out of the House over this issue. They do not respond to our issues,” the former CM claimed.