Will not allow Parliament to function till PM Modi makes statement on Pegasus row: TMC

NEW DELHI: Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC) has decided that it will not allow Parliament to take up any other issue till Prime Minister Narendra Modi and home minister Amit Shah speak on the Pegasus snooping row and allow a proper discussion on it in the House.
TMC members held a parliamentary strategy meeting on Thursday morning which was attended by the party’s new general secretary Abhishek Banerjee. The phone number of Abhishek, who is the nephew of Mamata Banerjee, is on the list of potential targets of snooping using Pegasus spyware.
"We want nothing short of replies from the Prime Minister and the home minister as the issue is of grave importance. In the next 48 hours, we believe more names are expected to emerge of the possible targets of hacking by Pegasus. This is not a matter where the IT minister can make a statement and get over with it … even the Watergate scandal looks small in comparison," TMC Rajya Sabha leader Derek O’ Brien said at a press conference here on Thursday.
“We want the House to run, but nothing is more important than the snooping issue that has to do with the national security. Hacking and spying on media, political opponents, Supreme Court judges, activists. We want a straight answer to ‘did you use Pegasus’ in yes or no,” O’Brien said.
TMC chief whip in Rajya Sabha Sukhendu Sekhar Roy said, that he and two other party MPs have been giving notices under Rule 267 in the Upper House since the first day for a discussion on the Pegasus issue but it has not been taken up.
“Prime Minister and home minister should tell us who employed NSO,” said Roy speaking at the press conference.
“It now seems the 2019 elections were also rigged with the same snooping devises, as in Bengal it has been proved that BJP did not have enough people’s support to win 18 seats,” he added.
“Former IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had told the House last year that the snooping issue had been taken up with the Israeli authorities, which means the government is aware of it,” said Roy.
Roy also said that at Thursday’s Rajya Sabha business advisory committee meeting, TMC members have said that the three contentious agricultural laws should be repealed before any discussion on the farmers’ issues is taken up for discussion in the House.
The monsoon session has already been disrupted over the issue since the day Parliament opened on July 19.
Earlier today, a TMC MP snatched papers from communications and information technology minister Ashwini Vaishnaw in the Rajya Sabha and tore those as the minister was about to make a statement on the alleged snooping row using Israeli spyware Pegasus.