Rahul Gandhi, Ashwini Vaishnaw among Pegasus's potential targets: Report

Pegasus snooping scandal snowballed into a political potboiler on Monday with latest revelations showed that Union Ministers Ashwini Vaishnaw and Prahlad Patel, former Congress president Rahul Gandhi, top Trinamool Congress leader Abhishek Banerjee, election strategist Prashant Kishor and former Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa were either spied or were potential targets.

Five friends and at least two aides of Rahul, 18 numbers of family and associates of Vaishnaw and Patel, a former close aide of Union Minister Smriti Irani, an aide of BJP leader Vasundhara Raje, late VHP leader Pravin Togadia and the sexual harassment victim and her husband in the case involving former Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi were also in the leaked list of targets or potential targets of the snooping using Israeli spyware Pegasus, The Wire reported.

Also read — Pegasus row: From Rahul Gandhi to Asaduddin Owaisi, who said what

The new revelations will rock the Parliament on Tuesday, with the non-NDA parties all set to raise the issue of Opposition leaders being targeted through snooping. Israeli company NSO Group, which owns Pegasus, has maintained that it sells its product only to "vetted" governments.

It also came on a day when new Information and Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, who himself was a possible target of snooping, made a statement in Lok Sabha rubbishing the 'Pegasus Project' reportage while questioning the timing of the report saying it was an attempt aimed at "maligning Indian democracy".

Top virologist Gagandeep Kang, who has been critical of the Modi government's Covid-19 handling, was also a potential target for surveillance way back in 2018 at a time she was dealing with the fight against the Nipah virus.

The report said Rahul was the potential target for surveillance -- it could not be conclusively proven that he was snooped as his phone was not available for forensic analysis -- ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections while Lavasa's phone was chosen for surveillance weeks after he dissented against other two Election Commissioners who ruled in favour of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah on complaints of poll code violations.

Kishor's phone was broken into for surveillance during the recently concluded West Bengal Assembly election while an earlier attempt to break into his phone in the run-up to 2019 Lok Sabha polls was unsuccessful. Banerjee, also the nephew of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and considered her successor, was also a potential target for surveillance.

The report said that traces of Pegasus on Kishor's phone were also detected in 14 days last month and 12 days this month, including on July 13 when he met Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi in Delhi. In fact, a hack of Kishor's phone occurred even on the date The Wire met him and artificial intelligence helped conduct forensic analysis on it, it said.

"Targeted surveillance of the type you describe whether in regard to me, other leaders of the opposition or indeed any law-abiding citizen of India is illegal and deplorable. If your information is correct, the scale and nature of surveillance you describe goes beyond an attack on the privacy of individuals. It is an attack on the democratic foundations of our country," Rahul was quoted by The Wire as saying.

On Sunday, it had reported that the leaked database, which was accessed by Paris-based media nonprofit Forbidden Stories and Amnesty International and shared with select media groups internationally, had at least 40 journalists and around a dozen activists, including the Bhima Koregaon case accused, who were potential targets for surveillance using Pegasus.

Also read — The long chase to catch NSO Group's Pegasus snooping

Vaishnaw's name was revealed in the report less than an hour after he made the statement in Lok Sabha. The 50-year-old bureaucrat-turned-entrepreneur-turned-politician was inducted into Modi's Cabinet only on July 7 and the leaked database showed that he had become the target for possible surveillance in 2017, at least two years before he joined the BJP.

Another number, apparently listed in the name of his wife, also appears to have been selected, according to the report.

In the case of Patel, who is a bete noire of Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the report said the leaked database not only had his or his wife's numbers but also that of at least 15 of his close political associates and aides. Even his cook and gardener were potential targets for surveillance, the report said.

Lavasa was chosen as a target for potential surveillance weeks after he submitted his dissent on complaints against Modi and Shah 2019. Incidentally in September 2019, he and his family were under the scanner of investigative agencies on charges of tax evasion.

Not just Lavasa but Association for Democratic Reforms' Jagdeep Chhokar and Indian Express reporter Ritika Chopra, who covers the Election Commission and reported on Lavasa's dissent notes as well as the differences within the Election Commission were also under the Pegasus scanner.

The report also said that three phone numbers belonging to the Supreme Court staffer who accused former Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, who is presently a Rajya Sabha nominated member, of sexual harassment in April 2019 were selected as potential targets for surveillance.

A total of 11 phone numbers associated with the complainant and her family were selected, making them among the largest cluster of associated phone numbers in the India-leg of the Pegasus Project, the report added.

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