Unless extended, Parliament’s monsoon session will conclude this Friday leaving the Opposition bruised and the government fuming. People would continue to ask if the Opposition is right in holding the entire session to ransom over Pegasus merely on the basis of a questionable report.
Is Pegasus the issue? Not at all. Union Home Minister Amit Shah was correct when he said that these were disruptors and obstructers conspiring to malign India internationally. The timing is important and it cannot be a mere coincidence. Disrupt the short session of Parliament and try to keep the momentum till Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections due early next year.
They know that the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections are crucial and it is a do or die battle for them. One can recall that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi tried a similar trick ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections when he tried to dent Prime Minister Narendra Modi by imagining corruption in the Rafale deal and his jibe “Chowkidar chor hai”. The Prime Minister responded by adding chowkidar in his Twitter handle which was emulated by crores of his followers.
The Pegasus snooping issue is another fiction. There is no guarantee that it is not a part of another toolkit. Only an impartial inquiry would establish if some Opposition leaders were also part of the toolkit so that they could plan their move and raise the issue in Parliament. In national interest, if at all, inquiry should be done on this.
When an international organisation, Amnesty International, that had to shamefully leave India for not following the law of the country, and Forbidden Stories funded by George Soros, join hands their agenda would be clear. If so-called farmers’ agitation can have a toolkit (thanks to an inadvertent tweet by Greta Thunberg that led to revelation about the toolkit), there is quite a possibility that there is a grand design to destabilise India.
This line of thinking has more credence now that the Supreme Court has refused to entertain a petition merely on the basis of a report. There is no investigation to establish the veracity of the report. Opposition leaders trust the NSO for saying that it sold the Pegasus software only to government agencies, but they don’t trust the same NSO when it says the list is fabricated and that the NSO does not have access to any information about people in the list.
Now the Opposition is arguing that when France and Israel have ordered an investigation, why can’t India do the same? The NSO has welcomed the investigation and is confident that their claims would prove to be correct. To say that India should do what France has done is illogical. France does many things which India has not done and if Indian government starts doing the same, the entire Opposition would come on the streets. Also, the French government is the victim in the report whereas in India, the Opposition has made the Indian government the accused. The Indian government has denied illegal snooping and the matter should rest there.
Some people in France have approached the law enforcing agency saying their phones were hacked. In India none has yet approached the police or court to make such a claim. Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said that the government is avoiding a discussion in Parliament on the Pegasus issue as it knows that the Opposition would pin them down. If the Congress had any authentic information, it would have presented the same to the Supreme Court. It only wants to settle political scores by raising the issue.
Either you prove that the government is wrong, or you accept the version of the government. It is an elected government with a massive majority and has more credibility than some international organisations or media houses that have openly demonstrated their opposition to the Modi government. It cannot be accepted that you come out with wild allegations and try to put the government on the mat by asking it to prove that the allegations are not correct.
Hence, based on such a report if you stall proceedings of Parliament, questions are bound to be raised on your ulterior motives. It is not that the government has not responded. IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has given a statement in both Houses on 19 July and parliamentary affairs minister Pralhad Joshi has stated that Opposition members can seek clarifications if they want.
The IT minister deftly argued that based on three factors—the report itself, the denial by the NSO about existence of any such list and the established protocol that stops illegal snooping—one could safely say through the prism of logic that “there is no substance behind this sensationalism”.
He stated on the floor of the House that the report was sensational with many “over the top allegations”. He argued that the issue should be examined on facts and logic and urged parliamentarians to read the report in full.
“The basis of the report is that there is a consortium which has got access to a leaked database of 50,000 phone numbers. The allegation is that individuals linked to these phone numbers were being spied upon.” The minister quoted the report which said: “The presence of a phone number in the data does not reveal whether a device was infected with Pegasus or subject to an attempted hack. Without subjecting a phone to this technical analysis, it is not possible to conclusively state whether it witnessed an attack attempt or was successfully compromised.”
The minister quoted the NSO which denied having any such list. The NSO that owns Pegasus also said that the list of countries shown as having used Pegasus was also incorrect.
Vaishnaw reminded the Congress about “established protocol of surveillance and the fact that any form of illegal surveillance is not possible with the checks and balances in our laws and in our robust institutions.”
In the light of the above the Opposition should have realised its fault of jumping the gun and allowed Parliament to function. But casualty is the reason when you are blinded by the desire to oppose and frustrated by repeated failures to get even one issue against the Prime Minister that would find traction with people.
It is the same frustration that was witnessed when the Congress failed to prevent the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which granted citizenship rights to persecuted minorities from our neighbouring countries, from getting passed in Parliament. The Congress supported the anti-CAA movement without getting into the merits of the legislation.
The same happened on the so-called farmers’ agitation, when laws passed by Parliament were being opposed on the street. The Opposition may have thought that this would create an unprecedented movement against the Modi government. While a section of vested interests is still protesting, most farmers want to benefit from the government’s determination to empower farmers. The record production and procurement of both Wheat and Rice have shown this.
The West Bengal Chief Minister has tried to take the lead by appointing a Judicial Commission in the state to look into the Pegasus issue. After this she should have been silent. The merits of appointing such a Commission would pale into insignificance before her desire to become the fulcrum of the entire Opposition so that she could be projected as the opposition’s Prime Ministerial candidate in 2024.
The way Trinamool Congress (TMC) MPs have behaved shows their scant regard for democratic norms. The state is known for political violence. An extension of another version of that was seen in the actions of TMC MPs. TMC Rajya Sabha member Dr Santanu Sen was suspended for the entire session for snatching and tearing a statement from IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw’s hand. Some days later Rajya Sabha Chairman M. Venkaiah Naidu had suspended six members of TMC from the House for a day when they displayed placards in the well of the House in complete defiance of the Chair. These six TMC MPs were Dola Sen, Nadimul Haque, Abir Ranjan Biswas, Shanta Chhetri, Arpita Ghosh, and Mausam Noor.
Those in Opposition also approached the Supreme Court for ordering an investigation into the issue. The Supreme Court has asked some pertinent questions on which prominent lawyers who belong to the Congress had no answers. Why had none filed a complaint under the IT and Telegraph Act? Also, why no efforts were made to gather evidence despite such a report first appearing in May 2019?
And now the matter has gone to the apex court, there is no reason for the Opposition to stall parliament. The matter has become sub-judice and there is a convention of not discussing such matters on the floor of Parliament. The game plan of the Opposition was clear when Rahul Gandhi said after a meeting of Opposition parties that if we drop the demand for discussion the issue would be dead.
RJD leader and Rajya Sabha member Manoj Jha said that the Prime Minister must intervene to end Parliament logjam. He also said that the government was using the language of enmity. “If the Prime Minister himself intervenes and tells his people to break the ice and say ‘we are ready to discuss everything’, it is still possible to discuss. If possible, extend the session to make up for the time we have lost. We can sit after August 15.”
A joint statement issued by Opposition leaders said: “It is unfortunate that the government has unleashed a misleading campaign to malign the combined Opposition and blame it for the continued disruption in the Parliament. The responsibility for the deadlock lies squarely at the doorsteps of the government, which remains arrogant and obdurate and refuses to accept the Opposition’s demand for an informed debate in both the Houses. The Opposition once again urges the government to respect parliamentary democracy and accept the discussion.”
It would be naïve for the Opposition to try to create an impression that the Prime Minister and the government are different. The Prime Minister speaks through his ministers. And if the government considers the issue frivolous one should not expect that the Prime Minister should oblige.
On the issue of logjam, the government cannot do much if the Opposition decides not to allow the houses to function. Any Parliament session is convened to enable the government to transact legislative business and give the Opposition opportunities to debate the legislative proposals and also to raise issues of public importance. While the government would still transact business since it has got the majority to get any legislation enacted, the Opposition has lost the golden opportunity to discuss these issues.
This also shows that Opposition parties do not have anything substantial to discuss on pressing issues such as Covid-19 and the possibility of a third wave, farmers’ issues, floods and price rise. These are the issues that concern the common man. Who loses by such disruptions in Parliament? The government? The Opposition? Or, the people? Pegasus is a non-serious issue for people struggling for their daily bread. Go and ask anyone on the street and not arm-chair editors, and you will find your answers. The common refrain would be what the Opposition leaders want to hide?
The writer is the convener of the Media Relations Department of the BJP and represents the party as a spokesperson on TV debates. He has authored the book ‘Narendra Modi: The Game Changer’. Views expressed are writer’s personal.