Mamata Banerjee "Was Misinformed": Telugu Desam Party Over Pegasus Allegations

Telugu Desam Party (TDP) general secretary Nara Lokesh on Friday refuted the allegations that his party purchased Pegasus spyware while it was in power in Andhra Pradesh, but said the firm offered it to the state government.

A day after West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee claimed that the previous Chandrababu Naidu government purchased the Pegasus spyware, Mr Lokesh retorted, "She was misinformed".

"We have never purchased any spyware. We never indulged in any illegal phone tapping," Lokesh said.

Mr Lokesh, who was the then Minister for Information Technology in his father's Cabinet, said that Chandrababu Naidu would never indulge in such illegal acts. "Yes, Pegasus offered to sell its spyware to the AP government as well but we rejected it," he asserted.

Further, the TDP MLC said, "If there had been any such thing, would the (current) Jagan regime have spared us? In the last three years, they have tried every trick to fix us in one thing or the other but failed because we did nothing wrong."

Mr Lokesh said the DGP office clarified on August 12, 2021, that the Andhra Pradesh government had 'never procured' Pegasus software.

"This was in reply to the RTI application dated July 25, 2021, sent by one Nagendra Prasad, a resident of Yemmiganur, Kurnool district," he said.

Nara Lokesh said the RTI application had asked for details of the sanction letter for procuring Pegasus spyware, the office where it was installed, and officers in charge of it.