Phone tapping a blow to democracy: Nitish

Bihar Chief Minister, Nitish Kumar today termed as a "severe blow" to democracy the reported tapping of phones of top politicians and demanded that the Centre answer these matters.

Bihar Chief Minister, Nitish Kumar on Monday termed as a "severe blow" to democracy the reported tapping of phones of top politicians and demanded that the Centre answer these matters.

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"The tapping issue has dealt a severe blow to democracy... the Centre should come out with an appropriate reply to the expose by a weekly in this connection," Kumar told reporters in Patna.

He said the phone tapping issue had been exposed by a prestigious magazine and "I am sure that the weekly has done it after undertaking a thorough research."

"If there is any machine manufactured for phone tapping there should have been a law to deal with ... Can it be used for the purpose of tapping personal calls of politicians?" he asked.

The Outlook magazine has claimed that Government was making use of the latest phone tapping technology to prepare records of telephonic conversations of prominent leaders like Nitish Kumar, Union Minister Sharad Pawar, CPI-M leader Prakash Karat and Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh.