Shivraj Singh Chouhan defends Centre on Pegasus spyware scandal, calls it 'Congress ploy'

The Pegasus spyware scandal has caught the attention of political leaders as the Monsoon session of Parliament commenced. Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chauhan, defending his party, lashed out at the Opposition regarding the allegations they've made. The CM said that foreign powers and Congress friends are unable to digest India’s strength.

CM of Madhya Pradesh critical of the Opposition's claims

Shivraj Singh Chouhan in a press conference stated, "For Congress, family is first. I don't understand the politics of Congress. Their political power has stooped to zero. So even if we spy on them what are we going to achieve? He added, "Rahul Gandhi is politically numb. So what will we do by tapping a phone of a person who churns 'gold out of potatoes'." The MP CM continued by stating, "Congress itself is a party that is filled with spies. This is the history of congress that everyone has witnessed. From a political standpoint, congress does not possess gravity anymore and the scandal is a conspiracy to defame Indian democracy."

On explaining more on how the Congress spies, he questioned, "Why does Rahul Gandhi go to China Embassy at night and that too in disguise?" He even brought up the issue of Mani Shankar Iyer going to Pakistan and asking for their support. He was citing that time when Mani Shankar Aiyar stoked a fresh controversy by reportedly saying, during a panel discussion on a Pakistani news channel, that Prime Minister Narendra Modi needs to be removed if talks between India and Pakistan have to continue. This gave rise to a lot of red flags among the RSS and BJP members who went to be critical of Shankar's thought process.
The Pegasus matter was brought up a day before the Monsoon Session of Parliament and caused an almighty disruption. Shivraj said that even the introduction of new ministers in the house was not allowed by Congress. He quoted, 'We believe in the politics of information."

Chouhan briefs media on spying during Congress reign 

The CM of Madhya Pradesh stated that late leaders like K Kamraj and Lal Bahadur Shastri were snooped upon by Indira Gandhi. "Similarly, there was surveillance on Sitaram Kesari and Manmohan Singh at the instance of Sonia Gandhi and now Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi are doing the same with G-23 Congress leaders," he added. Many leaders in the UPA government had made allegations of phone tapping. Shivraj remembered that Manmohan Singh had mentioned that the phone tapping was done by a private agency, not by the government.

The CM stressed that all the allegations against the central government are baseless. On the contrary, Kamal Nath, ex-CM of MP asserted, "We have the list of espionage, will soon bring it in front of the media". Replying to this Shivraj interrogated, "From where do they bring all these things. If they have, why not release them?

How dangerous is Pegasus?

An Israel based surveillance tech company, NSO group also known as Q Cyber Technologies created Pegasus. It is not random software that can be purchased online. As per the NSO. group, Pegasus is not a mass surveillance technology and only collects data from the mobile devices of specific individuals, suspected to be involved in serious crime and terror. Pegasus gets installed on the phone without any knowledge of the user, via an innocuous link that downloads the malware onto the device. The spyware cannot be asserted for sure until a thorough forensic examination of the phone is done. Affected devices end up giving total control to the person spying on their user. Giving them access to data like Whatsapp chats, email, texts etc.
 

Image Credits - ANI