- Monday, February 24, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
INDIAN prime minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday (2) felt uncomfortable after the leader of one of its allies sought a probe in the ongoing Pegasus controversy that has rocked the parliament.
Nitish Kumar, the chief minister of the eastern Indian state of Bihar and leader of the Janata Dal (United) party, said a probe should be done as words about telephone tapping are being heard for so many days now, Indian news agency ANI reported.
Kumar, who runs the government in Bihar with the BJP, also said the matter should be discussed in parliament as the opposition leaders have been “reiterating (for talks) for so many days”. Kumar was once a strong critic of Modi and even left the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance in 2013 over the former Gujarat chief minister’s elevation. However, over the years, he joined hands with the saffron party.
The opposition parties have united to protest against the alleged snooping by the Modi government on several Indians and demanded a discussion on the matter in both the houses of the parliament. Two senior journalists have also moved the Supreme Court of India seeking a probe into the issue. Representatives of the government have called the matter a “non issue”. It has said the entire episode was an attempt “to malign Indian democracy and its well-established institutions”.
A global collaborative investigative project has recently revealed that Israeli spyware Pegasus was used to target over 300 mobile phone numbers in India, including that of ministers serving in the Modi government, various Opposition leaders including Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and several journalists and business persons.
