WhatsApp alerted Priyanka about possible hacking: Cong

Amid a raging row over WhatsApp snooping, the Congress on Sunday claimed that Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s phone was also hacked using the Pegasus spyware.

“Priyanka Gandhi Vadra too received a text from WhatsApp that it had sent to many others whose phones were attacked using the Pegasus spyware,” Randeep Singh Surjewala, in-charge of the AICC Communication Department, told reporters in New Delhi.

Surjewala did not specify when Priyanka had received the text message from WhatsApp, and also did not say why the Congress remained quiet about it all along.

Priyanka becomes the fourth politician to claim that her phones were hacked. Earlier, NCP leader Praful Patel, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and former Lok Sabha member Santosh Bhartiya had claimed that their phones have been hacked.

The statement came on a day two Parliamentary committees chaired by Congress leaders decided to look into the snoopgate.

The Congress has attacked the Modi government over the WhatsApp snooping row, demanding to know which central agency had purchased the Pegasus software from Israeli firm NSO.

Accusing the BJP government of executing the spying racket, Surjewala termed the BJP ‘Bhartiya Jasoos Party’.

BJP IT Cell chief Amit Malviya dismissed the claims made by Surjewala and sought to remind of the alarm created by the Congress when a green light from a video camera had flashed on Rahul Gandhi’s face while on the campaign trail.