Pegasus set to rock Parliament session
NEW DELHI: The Pegasus expose by The New York Times is likely to cast its shadow on the budget session of Parliament starting Monday, with the Opposition preparing to paralyse it.
Leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury set the ball rolling on Sunday by demanding a privilege motion against Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw for allegedly misleading the Lok Sabha on the matter. In a letter to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, he cited the NYT report that claimed India had bought the spyware in 2017. Yet, the minister claimed on the floor of the House that the Centre had nothing to do with Pegasus, he said.
“It appears that the Modi government has misled Parliament and the Supreme Court and lied to the people of India,” Chowdhury alleged. In a sworn affidavit in the Supreme Court, the government had unequivocally denied all allegations against it on the Pegasus, he pointed out.
The Editors Guild of India, too, pitched in, urging the Justice R V Raveendran committee set up by the Supreme Court to examine the Pegasus deal, to take cognisance of the “startling claims” made by NYT and seek responses from the government and the ministries that may have been involved in the alleged deal in 2017.
The Guild also urged the panel to keep its proceedings open to the public so that there is complete transparency on the witnesses being called and their responses.
As for the government, it sought to brush the issue aside with former Army Chief and Union minister V K Singh calling NYT supari media. “Can you trust NYT? They are known as Supari Media,” he tweeted. But BJP leader Subramanian Swamy asked the Centre to rebut NYT, saying India’s Pegasus purchase would amount to a scandal akin to Watergate.
Meanwhile, advocate M L Sharma approached the Supreme Court seeking directions to register an FIR against the Centre for probe to recover public money paid for the deal in view of the NYT report.
Rerun of washout?
The Pegasus row had led to a near washout of the monsoon session when a united Opposition did not allow both Houses to function and sought a discussion on the matter.