E-Paper
‘Not a shred of evidence to link govt or BJP to controversy’: RS Prasad on Pegasus leak
While the opposition parties are demanding a probe and raised the issue in Parliament, the BJP has denied any link to the wrongdoing.
Reports by an international media consortium that claim Indian politicians, journalists, judges and at least two serving ministers could have been among those targeted for hacking through Israeli spyware that is sold only to governments have snowballed into a political slugfest between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the opposition.
While the opposition parties are demanding a probe and raised the issue in Parliament, the BJP has denied any link to the wrongdoing.
On Monday former IT and telecom Minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad said there is “not even a shred of evidence” to link the BJP or the Union government to the entire Pegasus snooping controversy and raised questions about the timing of the story coinciding with the monsoon session of Parliament.
Responding to the Congress party’s demand for an independent probe into the issue, he said,” We strongly refute, condemn the baseless and bereft of political propriety comments of the Congress party. This is a new low in the political discourse of the party that has ruled India for 50 years.”
The former minister, during a press briefing, said the country has a robust system and specific laid down rules and procedures that allow tracking or tapping phones for national security purposes.
Referring to the statement made by IT minister Ashwini Vaishnav in Parliament on the controversy, Prasad said, “The IT minister confirmed today that lawful interception of electronic communication can only be made as per relevant rules under provisions of section 5(2) of Indian telegraph act, 1885, and section 69 of the information technology act 2000.”
Raising questions about the timing of the reports, the minister said the question to ask is that if 45 plus countries are using the cases then why is India being targeted only.
He went on to say those who broke the story themselves did not claim that a presence of a particular number in the database does not confirm that it is infected with the spyware. ”The whole story has broken out just one day before the monsoon session, what is the agenda behind this? Why is India being targeted?”
The former minister also questioned if the targeting has anything to do with India’s handling of the Covid crisis and the vaccination drive. ”Is it an attempt to block the story of India’s development which is Atmanirbhar and full of confidence? Are some people upset that India is making strides and getting the highest FDI?” he questioned.
Training his guns at the Congress, Prasad said, it was during the UPA rule that the then finance minister Pranab Mukherjee wrote to the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh complaining that his phone was being tapped at the behest of then home minister P Chidambaram. “In 2013, there were news reports based on RTI queries that peoples’ phones had been tapped,” he said.
