Congress making an issue out of non-issue: Venkaiah Naidu

Hyderabad, March 15 (IANS) Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu on Sunday accused the Congress of making an issue out of a non-issue over a "routine" security-related inquiry about its vice president Rahul Gandhi.

Stating that Congress is trying to make it a political issue, he clarified that Prime Minister Narendra Modi or Home Minister Rajnath Singh were in no way involved in this.

"According to Delhi Police, there was a security related check and inquiry at the house of Congress leader. Neither prime minister nor home minister or government are in any way involved in this routine check up and security drill by security apparatus of Delhi police," Naidu told reporters here.

The senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader claimed that same thing happened to him when he was in opposition.

"They came and gave a questionnaire and asked me to sign that also. When I became minister, there was some inquiry. They said it is a routine check and we have to do it because we are giving you Z plus security. They asked who are frequent visitors; any suspicion about anybody who is roaming around your house; do you notice anybody who is not familiar," he said.

The minister said same questions were put to senior most parliamentarian L. K. Advani, BJP president Amit Shah and even Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier.

"We should not make issues out of non-issues and create controversies simply because some questioning has been done," Naidu said.

He advised Congress to be more mature and balanced because it ruled the country for 50 years.

During Congress regime there used to be surveillance on telephones and lot of such complaints were received, he alleged.