Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee president S. Sailajanath on Thursday demanded that the Centre reveal the names of leaders who were behind the alleged snooping on their leader Rahul Gandhi and a number of other prominent journalists and politicians in the Pegasus spyware row.
In response to a call given by the All India Congress Committee, the State party leaders took out a protest rally from Andhra Ratna Bhavan to the Raj Bhavan. They were later arrested by the police.
Holding placards that demanded immediate resignation of the Union Home Minister Amit Shah over the row, Mr. Sailajanath said use of the Pegasus spyware, developed by Israel’s NSO group and marketed as a tool to track criminals and terrorists, to tap the phones of prominent journalists, politicians and others in the country was unacceptable.
Reiterating the party demand that the Home Minister resign owning responsibility for it, he said a probe should be ordered and the Supreme Court should monitor the investigation.
He condemned the arrests of the Congress leaders who were protesting peacefully, and accused the YSRCP government of unleashing autocracy. “The Jagan Mohan Reddy government, instead of questioning the Centre on the crucial issue, is reduced to a slave to the BJP government at the Centre for ‘understandable’ reasons,” he said.
APCC working presidents N. Thulasi Reddy and Mastan Vali, AICC secretary G. Rudraraju, senior party leaders KBR Naidu, Harsh Kumar and others participated in the protest.
