Pegasus set to rock Parliament again over fresh claims

New Delhi, January 29

Fresh media claims about India buying the Pegasus spyware from Israel triggered a massive political storm on Saturday with the Congress terming the act “treasonous” and vowing a joint Opposition offensive against the government during the Budget session of Parliament starting Monday.

Storm over report on 2017 deal with israel

• A New York Times report claims Pegasus, bundled with a Rs15K cr defence deal, was sold to India days ahead of PM Narendra Modi’s historic 2017 Israel visit
• It suggests after India got the software, its stand on Palestine changed. For decades, India had maintained a policy of “commitment to the Palestinian cause”
• It further claims countries like Mexico and Panama shifted their positions toward Israel in key votes at the United Nations after winning access to Pegasus
• Israel-made spy software has been used to hack into Apple and Android phones and is under criticism for illegal snooping on political rivals, activists, judges, mediapersons

Supari Media

Can you trust New York Times? They are known as Supari Media. — VK Singh, MOS

Utter rubbish

The insinuation about India’s UN vote (on Palestine) is utter rubbish. — Syed Akbaruddin, india’s ex-envoy to UN

Watergate?

Modi government must rebut… This implies prima facie that our government misled the Supreme Court and Parliament. Watergate? Subramanian Swamy

Congress cites those targeted

Pegasus was used to potentially target Rahul Gandhi; ex-PM HD Deve Gowda; ex-CMs Siddaramaiah and HD Kumaraswamy; ex BJP CM Vasundhara Raje; BJP minister Prahlad Singh Patel; IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw; minister Smriti Irani’s OSD; MP Abhishek Banerjee; former VHP head Praveen Togadia; some SC judges; an Election Commissioner, ex-CBI Director Alok Verma; BSF ex-chief KK Sharma; former RAW officer Jitendra Ojha and two Army Colonels, among others.

Citing a New York Times investigation, former Congress president Rahul Gandhi accused the government of buying Pegasus to spy on India’s primary democratic institutions, politicians and the public. “Government functionaries, Opposition leaders, armed forces, judiciary were all targeted by phone-tappings. This is treason. Modi government has committed treason,” he said.

The Left parties too demanded the government’s response, saying silence would mean complicity.

The government dismissed the report with former Army chief and Minister of State VK Singh calling NYT “supari media” and tweeting, “Can you trust NYT? They are known as Supari Media.”

Even as the MoS sought to make light of the allegations, BJP’s Subramanian Swamy asked the Centre to rebut NYT, saying the purchase of spyware Pegasus by India would amount to a scandal akin to “Watergate.”

“Modi government must rebut the New York Times revelations that it did, indeed, subscribe by payment from taxpayers’ money of Rs 300 crore to spyware Pegasus sold by Israeli NSO company. This implies prima facie that our government misled the Supreme Court and Parliament. Watergate?” Swamy tweeted, as the issue resurfaced ahead of the Budget session in repeat of 2021 when Pegasus-related reports surfaced ahead of the monsoon session of Parliament.

IT Minister Ashwani Vaishnaw had then told the House that the timing of the reports was not a coincidence. “When we look at this issue through the prism of logic, it clearly emerges that there is no substance behind this sensationalism,” he had said while Home Minister Amit Shah had proclaimed in the Lok Sabha, “Aap chronology samajhiye! This is a report by disruptors for obstructors. Disruptors are global organisations which do not like India to progress. Obstructors are political players in India who do not want India to progress.”

As the matter returned to haunt the NDA government again, the Congress urged the Supreme Court for suo motu note of the NYT report and penal proceedings against the government “for attempting to deliberately deceive” the apex court.

“It is now very clear that Parliament was deceived, the Supreme Court duped and the people lied to,” Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said.

He said the Congress would talk to like-minded parties and “hold the PM accountable” in Parliament and in people’s court with elections underway in five states (UP, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa, Manipur).

“This is treason, hijack of democracy, a systematic attack on the fundamental rights of privacy and dismantling of national security, considering who all were spied on illegally and unconstitutionally by this government,” Surjewala alleged. Congress veteran Mallikarjun Kharge said the government should sue the NYT, if they were lying. “If the government has the courage, it should file a defamation suit against NYT which has published the report stating that the government had purchased the spyware,” he said, recalling how the monsoon session last year was disrupted over the government’s denial of a debate on alleged government deployment of the weapons-grade cyber tool against its people.