Ahead of the Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Tuesday, December 21,alleged that her children’s Instagram accounts have been hacked. The Congress leader made the allegation two days after Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav accused Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath of getting his telephones tapped and listening to the recordings of his conversations every evening.

"Leave phone tapping, the Instagram accounts of my children have also been hacked,” Priyanka told reporters when asked about allegations of phone tapping of opposition leaders by the government. “Does the government have no other work?" she asked.

Priyanka's husband Robert Vadra has threatened legal action in the matter. "They had created hurdles before as well, which I tolerated for seven years. They made baseless allegations against me, but children should be spared from all this," Robert Vadra told IANS. However, though no official complaint has been filed over the matter by Priyanka Gandhi, sources told NDTV that the alleged hacking will be probed by the Union government’s anti-cyber crime unit.

The alleged hacking will reportedly be investigated by the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team, or CERT-In, which falls under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.  On Sunday, December 19, a day after the Income Tax Department had conducted searches at the houses of a Samajwadi Party (SP) leader and three others who, SP president Akhilesh Yadav alleged that his phone was being tapped by the government. He also claimed that senior IAS officials were involved in the alleged snooping as well.

“All our phones are being tapped. This includes calls made from the SP office and of people associated with us. The CM himself listens to the recordings in the evening. This is the useless government we have. I should warn you all that if you contact me, then recordings of our conversation will also be listened to,” Akhilesh Yadav said.

(With IANS inputs)