The Trinamul Congress on Saturday lodged a complaint with the Election Commission of India, alleging that chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s phone had been tapped.

The BJP had released on Friday an audio clip of a purported conversation in which Mamata allegedly proposed a rally with the bodies of the Sitalkuchi victims who were gunned down by central forces on April 10.

A Trinamul delegation, led by its national vice-president Yashwant Sinha, met Bengal chief electoral officer Aariz Aftab and lodged the complaint.

The delegation said the recording was in violation of not only the Constitution but also the Indian Telegraph Act, the Information Technology Act and the Indian Penal Code.

“A day before polling, a so-called tape of a telephone conversation of the chief minister was released by the ruling party at the Centre in what is evidently the act of the dirty tricks department of the BJP. The timing is clearly with the direct aim of influencing voters,” said Sinha, a former minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee cabinet.

The clip was released at a news conference at a BJP party office in Calcutta by the party’s IT cell chief, Amit Malviya.

On Saturday, Sinha, a former IAS officer, said: “The biggest question, of course, is how is a chief minister’s telephone conversation recorded? Who is doing it? I have been a Union minister. I can tell you with complete authority that even to tap the phone of a criminal, there is a prescribed procedure that has to be adhered to….

“A chief minister’s telephone was tapped and the recording is being released by the IT cell of the ruling party (at the Centre)… how did it get it? How was it taped? How did the IT cell of the BJP get it? So many serious questions.”

Responding to a BJP allegation that the clip was released from within Trinamul itself, Sinha said it was as laughable as the IT cell’s news conference.

On Saturday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi couldn’t resist bringing up the audio clip.

Modi told a rally in Asansol: “I think you all have listened to it (the audio tape). Didi was asking her party colleague to organise a rally with the bodies. Didi is doing politics even on unfortunate deaths.”

Mamata, too, reacted to the circulation of the audio clip. “They (the BJP) are now even eavesdropping on our everyday conversations. It appears they are tapping our phone calls, even on cooking and other household chores,” she said.

“I will order a CID probe. I will not spare anyone involved in such snooping activities…. The BJP has made the tape viral so it is clear they did it. I will not spare them,” she added.