Kolkata: The political parties in Bengal have pounced on Centre’s ruling party BJP and tore them following allegations of involvement in phone-tapping of prominent personalities in the country using Israeli spyware Pegasus.
TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee lashed out at Union Home Minister Amit Shah advising him to come prepared with better resources. “Two Minutes of SILENCE for the SORE LOSERS! Despite ALLIES like ED, CBI, NIA, IT, ECI, @BJP4India’s money + might and #PegasusSpying Mr @AmitShah couldn’t save his face in #BengalElections2021. Please COME Prepared with Better RESOURCES in 2024!” Banerjee tweeted.
“The BJP suffers from the fear psychosis of Abhishek Banerjee and Mamata Banerjee. During the assembly polls campaign, we had witnessed how Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and senior BJP leaders had constantly attacked Abhishek. Now this revelation about snooping proves they are afraid about the rise of our youth leader. But, such sort of low-level politics won’t save the BJP from an imminent defeat in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls,” TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh was quoted as saying by news agency IANS.
“This is a black day for democracy. This is shameful that the union government is using spyware to snoop on the phones of politicians, journalists, activists. Even youth leaders like Abhishek Banerjee are not spared; our poll strategist Prashant Kishor’s phone was hacked,” said another senior TMC leader.
Meanwhile, the Leader of Opposition in the parliament’s lower house, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said that this Pegasus spyware surveillance is an issue of national security. “The matter will be raised in both houses of the Parliament. What is the union government up to?” he questioned. According to Chowdhury, either Home Minister Amit Shah clarify or resign. CMP too took the opportunity to train guns on BJP. “This is unacceptable levels of authoritarianism employing fascistic methods. The ‘snoop, plant, arrest’ formula employed by this BJP government is a violation of the fundamental rights of Indian citizens. The BJP-led central government must answer and come clean on using the Pegasus cyber software for surveillance of Indian citizens in an illegal and unauthorized manner,” the CPM politburo said via a statement.
