Pegasus row: Congress’ Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury demands privilege motion against IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw

Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury wrote in a letter to the LS Speaker, "I demand that a privilege motion may be initiated against the Minister of Information Technology for deliberately misleading the House on the Pegasus issue.”

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New Delhi: Leader of the Congress party in the Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury on Sunday (January 30) demanded that a privilege motion be moved against Minister for Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw for “deliberately misleading the House on Pegasus issue."

In a letter to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, Chowdhury referred to the report in New York Times which claimed that the Israeli spyware Pegasus and a missile system were the "centerpieces" of a roughly USD 2-billion deal of "sophisticated weapons and intelligence gear" between India and Israel in 2017.

The Congress MP said the central government, on the floor of the House, “always maintained that it had nothing to do with Pegasus and that it never bought the spyware from the NSO Group”. 

He alleged that the Modi government "lied to the Supreme Court when it was directly questioned about the purchase and deployment of Pegasus".

Leader of Congress party in Lok Sabha, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury writes to Speaker Om Birla & "demand that a privilege motion may be initiated against Minister of Information Technology for deliberately misleading the House on Pegasus issue." pic.twitter.com/aoLhyqHGZh

— ANI (@ANI) January 30, 2022

The Congress leader further said that in a sworn affidavit, the government unequivocally denied "any and all" of the allegations against it on the Pegasus issue.

"In light of the latest revelations by New York Times, it appears that the Modi government has misled Parliament and the Supreme Court and lied to the people of India”, the letter read. 

Chowdhury asked the LS Speaker to initiate a privilege motion against the IT minister. "In view of the above, I demand that a privilege motion may be initiated against the Minister of Information Technology for deliberately misleading the House on the Pegasus issue.” 

After NYT’s report, Congress has been targetting the central government over the Pegasus issue which had rocked the Monsoon session of the Parliament last year. 

The government had earlier all denied the allegations that it used Pegasus spyware to snoop on political leaders, journalists, judges and civil society activists. 

(With agency inputs)