Resolution passed in Assembly: Andhra panel to probe if Naidu govt used Pegasus

Finance Minister B Rajendranath told the House it was “quite possible” the Naidu government may have bought and used the spyware.

“A senior leader and CM like Mamata Banerjee will not say it just like that,” he told the Assembly on Monday afternoon.

“Naidu used all kinds of tactics against his political opponents. It is possible the spyware was used to keep a tab on the 5 crore people of AP. We cannot present any evidence because such mischievous and illegal work is done illegally and is kept under wraps without leaving any evidence. We are assuming that not only political leaders but voters of all sections were under surveillance during Naidu’s regime,’’ he added.

The TDP dismissed the allegations. Naidu’s son and TDP’s national general secretary Nara Lokesh said Pegasus did offer to sell the spyware to the then AP government “but we rejected it”.

“If the government had purchased the spyware, there would be a record of it,’’ he said. “If there had been any such thing, would the (YSRCP chief and incumbent CM) Jagan regime spare us? In the last three years, they have tried every trick to fix us in one thing or the other but failed, because we did nothing wrong.”

Denying all allegations of illegal phone tapping, Lokesh, who was the Minister for Information Technology in his father’s Cabinet, said Banerjee’s comments were “misinformed”.

“If we had resorted to such things, Jagan Mohan Reddy would not have come to power in 2019,’’ he said.

“I don’t know whether she (Mamata) has indeed said that, and where and in which context… if she did say that she is certainly misinformed.”

Meanwhile, in the Assembly Monday, YSRCP and TDP MLAs traded barbs as Water Resources Minister P Anil Kumar asked if the TDP party can contest elections without forming an alliance with other parties.

TDP MLAs, for their part, sought to corner the ruling party by asking them to stop selling “harmful”, cheap liquor.

For the past two days, TDP MLAs blamed the government for selling cheap liquor brands that they said are harmful to health and disrupted the House proceedings over the death of at least 26 persons in the state allegedly due to consumption of illicit liquor.