NSO Came To Bengal To Sell Pegasus Spyware For Rs 25 Crore, Rejected It: Mamata

Mamata on Pegasus: Banerjee once again launched a sharp attack on the central government saying that the govt has recorded the calls of many journalists and leaders.

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee (File photo: AFP)

New Delhi: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday claimed that she too had been offered to buy spy software Pegasus at least four to five years back for just Rs 25 crore but she had turned down the offer, as reported by the news agency PTI.

Addressing the media, Banerjee once again launched a sharp attack on the central government saying that the govt has recorded the calls of many journalists and leaders. 

"We have never purchased any Spyware. We never indulged in any illegal phone tapping," Telugu Desam Party general secretary Nara Lokesh said here on Thursday.

Reacting to Banerjee's claim that the previous Chandrababu Naidu government purchased the Pegasus Spyware, Lokesh who was the then Minister for Information Technology in his father Chandrababu's Cabinet, said "I don't know whether she has indeed said that, and where and in which context. If she did say that, she is certainly misinformed."

However, he said the software was offered to the state government.

"Yes, Pegasus offered to sell its Spyware to the AP government as well but we rejected it," Lokesh said.

Had the government bought the Spyware, there would be a record of it, he pointed out.

A worldwide media consortium had announced last year that more than 300 confirmed Indian cell phone numbers were on the list of potential targets for surveillance using Pegasus spyware. The Supreme Court is as of now hearing a bunch of requests on the allegations of misuse of this spyware in India.
  
Earlier, after the Pegasus spyware case came to light, Mamata had ordered the formation of a commission of inquiry to probe allegations of phone hacking, tracking and phone recording in West Bengal, though the Supreme Court later Had rejected the proposal to form a commission. Mamata Banerjee had said that her phones were being tapped.

(With PTI inputs)