JOIN USRahul Gandhi maligning India from foreign soil: Anurag Thakur on Cong leader's Pegasus claim
As reports emerged that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, in his Cambridge speech, said that he was surveilled by the BJP government through the Pegasus software, Union minister Anurag Thakur launched an attack on him, and asked him to submit his phone to prove the allegations true.
Rahul Gandhi, during a lecture at Cambridge University’s Cambridge Judge Business School as a Visiting Fellow, said that he was spied on through his phone with the Pegasus software. He added that he was warned by intelligence officers to watch what he says on the calls.
“I had Pegasus on my phone. A large number of politicians had Pegasus on their phones. I have been called by Intelligence officers who told me, ‘Please be careful about what you are saying on the phone because we are sort of recording the stuff’. So this is the constant pressure that we feel … Cases on the Opposition. I have got a number of criminal cases for things that should under no circumstances be criminal cases. That’s what we are trying to defend,” Gandhi said in his address.
Reacting to this, Thakur said that Gandhi’s speech was a result of the Congress’s defeat in the polls, and that if Gandhi’s allegations were true, he would have submitted his phone for examination before the Supreme Court-appointed committee, which was set up to look into the snooping allegations against the government.
“It has become his habit to defame India on foreign shores. What was his compulsion that he could not submit his mobile phone to have it checked for Pegasus spyware? He is already on bail in a corruption case. What was there in his phone that he needed to hide,” Thakur told reporters.
Thakur said that Gandhi was “defaming” India due to the defeat in polls. “The results show Congress has been wiped, they are not able to accept the people’s mandate. This is what Rahul Gandhi and the Congress can’t accept... one by one they are losing all states,” Thakur said.