‘Gandhi, two BJP ministers potential Pegasus targets’

The alleged use of Pegasus — a powerful surveillance tool for mobile phones licensed only to governments — triggered a political storm on Monday, as it emerged that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, former election commissioner Ashok Lavasa, Trinamool Congress general secretary Abhishek Banerjee and two Union ministers, including Ashwini Vaishnaw, were on the list of potential targets.

The government, however, came down strongly against these allegations, with home minister Amit Shah calling the entire effort an act by “disruptors” and “obstructers” who want to derail India’s progress. “Disruptors are global organisations which do not like India to progress. Obstructers are political players in India who do not want India to progress,” he said in an official statement.

In the second set of explosive revelations by The Washington Post, The Guardian and The Wire on Monday, phone numbers of newly-inducted IT minister Vaishnaw and minister of state for Jal Shakti Prahlad Singh Patel were revealed to be among the 300 verified Indian numbers listed as “potential targets” for surveillance during 2017-19 by a client of the Israel-based NSO Group.


No Substance: Vaishnaw
Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi said in a tweet that if these revelations were accurate, then it amounted to a “serious attack on an individual’s right to privacy”

Vaishnaw defended the government earlier in the day, saying there was “no substance” behind the sensational claims. “It was no coincidence that the news broke a day before the start of the monsoon session of Parliament,” he said, adding that “time-tested processes in our country are well established to ensure that unauthorised surveillance does not occur.”

Vaishnaw’s number, according to reports, was listed for possible surveillance in 2017, when he was not a BJP MP. Patel, an MP from Damoh in Madhya Pradesh, was earlier the minister of state for culture and tourism and among the seven ministers sent to West Bengal to coordinate party matters.

Ashok Lavasa had famously recorded a dissenting opinion on key Election Commission (EC) rulings during the 2019 national election campaign. His selection as a target of potential surveillance, reports suggest, began many weeks after he dissented. Lavasa later moved on from the EC to join the Asian Development Bank as vice-president.

The Guardian, meanwhile, reported that two numbers identified as belonging to Rahul Gandhi were chosen for potential surveillance. Reports also said numbers of five of his friends were also placed on the list of potential targets.

Additionally, while the mobile phone of Abhishek Banerjee, who is nephew of West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, was selected as a potential target, his personal secretary also made it to the list.

Campaign strategist Prashant Kishor’s phone was allegedly compromised in the middle of the West Bengal assembly election, according to digital forensics conducted by Amnesty International’s Security Lab. Kishor has been working with TMC and was a key member of its strategy team during polls.

Gogoi Accuser on List
The Wire reported that three phone numbers belonging to the Supreme Court staffer who had accused then Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi of sexual harassment in April 2019, were selected as potential targets for surveillance. The staffer was dismissed from service in December 2018, weeks after she said she had rebuffed the judge’s advances.