Reacting to the Supreme Court’s technical panel report on Pegasus, former IT minister and senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad accused the Congress of driving a motivated campaign based on falsehoods and asked if Rahul Gandhi would apologise for accusing the saffron party of treason.
Prasad said Rahul had termed the Pegasus software “an attempt to crush democracy” and that Congress’s animosity towards the prime minister led them to resort to falsehoods. “If you want to oppose us, then do that in elections. But there you are losing one election after another, and the defeat will continue in the coming days too,” Prasad said.
Prasad said the SC put in place a mechanism of eminent technical people and the working (of the committee) was to be supervised by Justice Ravindran, who he said, is a “very distinguished retired judge” of the Supreme Court. “The government had nothing to do with the committee,” Prasad.
He added that the campaign against Pegasus aimed to weaken and defame the PM, driven by the Congress’s hatred towards him.
Prasad also mentioned the UPA-era incident of snooping of the then finance minister Pranab Mukherjee in 2011 when the Congress was in power.
“The Congress party should not preach to us about spying. I am very sorry to refer to former finance minister Pranab Mukerjee, whose office was bugged by the Congress. It was known as the chewing gum gate,” Prasad said.
Prasad wondered if Rahul would apologise and said that in earlier incidents, including the Rafale deal as well as Central Vista, the Congress leader raised questions which were proven false.
“It is not in Rahul Gandhi’s nature to apologise. What happened when he ran the ‘Chowkidar’ campaign? Will Rahul Gandhi and the Congress apologise?” he asked.
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