Political parties in Bengal demand Shah's resignation over Pegasus spyware row

As the Pegasus snooping row snowballed into a political potboiler on Monday, leaders of all the major anti- BJP forces in West Bengal have launched a blistering attack on Narendra Modi-led central government and also demanded for Union Home Minister Amit Shah's resignation, writes Sumanta Ray Chaudhuri, ETV Bharat's Kolkata Bureau Chief.

Kolkata: Be it Trinamool Congress (TMC), Congress or the Left Parties - leaders of all the major anti- BJP forces in West Bengal, on Monday, launched a scathing attack against the Union government and more especially the Union Home Minister, Amit Shah over the Pegasus spyware controversy targeting surveillance over major Opposition leaders, journalists, human rights activists and certain existing and former bureaucrats.

All of them raised the same concern that the Union Home Ministry is peeping into the personal lives of the people of the country and also questioned that who authorized the Israeli firm, NSO, to conduct such illegal surveillance considering the fact that the NSO has categorically clarified that it deals only with “vetted” governments.

According to the TMC Parliamentary leader in the Rajya Sabha, Derek O’Brien, the Narendra Modi- led Union government has crossed all the limits of Parliamentary courtesy. “Now they are trying to peep in the bedrooms of the people of the country. The personal privacy of the people is being breached. There are blatant attempts to silence the Opposition's voice. The country must know who authorized such illegal surveillance,” he said.

Meanwhile, Congress Lok Sabha member and the Leader of the Opposition in the lower house of the Parliament, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said that this Pegasus spyware surveillance is a matter of national security. “The matter will be raised in both houses of the Parliament. What is the Union government up to?” he questioned. He said that either Union Home Minister Amit Shah should clarify or he should resign.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) politburo issued a statement questioning that the Union government, especially the Union Home Ministry should come out with a definite statement on who authorized NSO to conduct such illegal surveillance. “This is unacceptable levels of authoritarianism employing fascistic methods. The 'snoop, plant, arrest’ formula employed by this BJP government is a violation of the fundamental rights of Indian citizens. The BJP-led central government must answer and come clean on using the Pegasus cyber software for surveillance of Indian citizens in an illegal and unauthorized manner," the statement issued by party politburo read.

However, the BJP leaders in West Bengal sounded quite defensive while speaking on this issue to the media. BJP’s state vice president in West Bengal, Jaiprakash Majumdar said that since this is a national issue, it will not be proper on part of the state leadership to offer a comment on it. “The Union government and party's central leadership will surely explain the matter. Right now we, on behalf of the state BJP, cannot offer any comment,” he said.