The Congress party now aggressively places allegations on the BJP government for hacking phones of 300 people using Israeli spyware Pegasus. Former Gujarat Congress president Arjun Modhwadia on July 21, blamed the government for the whole incident. He said, “The call details of my mobile phone were obtained illegally in 2012 to frame IPS officer Sanjeev Bhatt.”
According to Modhwadia, even today in Gujarat, phone details of party persons, opposition party politicians, officials and journalists have been obtained. “Both the Chief Minister and the Deputy Chief Minister should also check whether their phone has been hacked or not,” he said.
Arjun Modhwadia scoffed at the Gujarat BJP’s internal factionalism, saying “a suspended constable has been made the state president so that he can keep an eye on the chief minister”.
Modhwadia also levelled serious allegations against the government for hacking the phones of Congress leaders in 2017 and 2020 during the Gujarat Rajya Sabha elections. Apart from this, the Congress party also talked about the hacking of MLAs’ phones in Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka to overthrow the government. According to Modhwadia, Narendra Modi “also tapped the phones of former BJP leader Haren Pandya and Congress leaders in 2002”. Modhwadia also recalls the 2009 Snoopgate chapter in which a young woman was allegedly spied on at the behest of Narendra Modi.
The Gujarat Congress has also asked the Modi government whether the Narendra Modi government has paid Rs 90 lakh per mobile for this software from any government venture.
The Congress party has demanded to issue a white paper from the state government, on the incidence of past phone tapping in Gujarat and they have also demanded a judicial inquiry into the whole incident. The Congress party has asked BJP to come out of denial mode.
About 300 mobile phones in the country have been hacked by Pegasus software so far. There have been reports of phone spying on 11 members of his family, including Rahul Gandhi, Election Commission Commissioner Lavasha, Cabinet Minister in the Modi government Ashwin Vaishnav, former minister Prahlad Joshi and former Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, who has been accused of sexual harassment.
Phones of journalists, human rights activists and even Supreme Court judges have been hacked.
