new Delhi: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday claimed that she too was offered at least four to five years ago to buy spy software Pegasus for just Rs 25 crore, but she turned down the offer, according to news agency PTI. PTI had reported.
Addressing the media, Banerjee once again launched a scathing attack on the central government, saying that the government has recorded calls of several journalists and politicians.
“We have never bought any spyware. We have never indulged in any illegal phone tapping,” Telugu Desam Party general secretary Nara Lokesh said here on Thursday.
Responding to Banerjee’s claim that the previous Chandrababu Naidu government had bought Pegasus spyware, Lokesh, who was information technology minister in his father Chandrababu’s cabinet, said, “I don’t know if he actually said that, and where. And in what context if he has said so, he has certainly been misinformed.”
However, he said the software was offered to the state government.
“Yes, Pegasus also offered to sell its spyware to the Andhra Pradesh government, but we rejected it,” Lokesh said.
He said that if the government had bought spyware, it would have had a record.
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A worldwide media consortium announced last year that there were more than 300 confirmed Indian cell phone numbers on its list of potential targets for surveillance using Pegasus spyware. The Supreme Court is currently hearing several requests on allegations of misuse of this spyware in India.
Earlier, after the Pegasus spyware case came to light, Mamta had ordered the setting up of an inquiry commission in West Bengal to investigate the allegations of phone hacking, tracking and phone recording, however later the Supreme Court rejected the proposal to form the commission. Had given. Mamta Banerjee had said that her phones are being tapped.
(with PTI inputs)