New Delhi: NDA (National Democratic Alliance) Convenor and former Defence Minister George Fernandes today (Sep 30, 2004) said, he was "under surveillance" of Government's sleuths and he resented being trailed by them.

"Let me tell you in so many words that just as I do not wish to have any security cover, I resent being trailed by the Government's undercover agents," he said in a letter to Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil following news reports that he was among nine politicians under "constant surveillance" of the of the Intelligence Bureau for their "potential to destabilise" the Government.

Asserting that he had got into public life on his own volition and was prepared to face all hazards of public life, the Janata Dal (United) president said, in the letter that "what the Government is doing to me is transgressing all canons of Human Rights and my Constitutional Rights".

In the two-page letter released to the media at a party briefing, Fernandes urged the Home Minister to "undo this Mussolinian activity in democratic India, and in the process make our nation a laughing stock of the world".

Recalling his "repeated request" to the Government that he did not wish to have any security personnel to be with him, the JD-U (Janata Dal-United) MP said, seven to eight plainclothes men kept sitting in the lawns of his house for 24 hours.

"No matter what part of the country I went to, there were more or less the same numbers who kept moving with me in two vehicles and insisted on spending their nights wherever I was", he said.

"I was no more in doubt that I was under the surveillance of the Government's sleuths," the letter said.

Meanwhile, JD-U spokesman Shiv Kumar said if the UPA Government was seriously interested in weeding out corruption, it should first remove the "tainted" Ministers from the Government.