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19 Jul, 11 tweets, 6 min read
BREAKING | #PegasusProject

Phone numbers of Ashwini Vaishnaw, inducted by PM Modi as his minister of communications, electronics and IT, and railways, and Prahlad Singh Patel, minister of state for Jal Shakti, were on the list of potential targets.

thewire.in/politics/bjp-m…
Also listed is the personal secretary to Vasundhara Raje Scindia, when she was the BJP’s CM in Rajasthan, and Sanjay Kachroo, who worked as an OSD for Smriti Irani in her first years as a Union minister in the Modi govt from 2014-2015. | @AjoyAshirwad

thewire.in/politics/bjp-m…
@AjoyAshirwad Other junior politicians linked to the BJP, and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s leader, Pravin Togadia, a long-time opponent of Modi from his days as chief minister of Gujarat, are other individuals whose numbers figure in the database.

thewire.in/politics/bjp-m…
@AjoyAshirwad Ashwini Vaishnaw appears to have been targeted for possible surveillance back in 2017, when he had not yet taken the plunge in favour of the BJP.

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

thewire.in/politics/bjp-m…
@AjoyAshirwad The former Odisha-cadre IAS officer and Rajya Sabha MP Vaishnaw was given three crucial cabinet portfolios in what was a much-publicised appointment in the latest cabinet reshuffle: communications, electronics and information technology, and railways.

thewire.in/politics/bjp-m…
@AjoyAshirwad Last week, it was Vaishnaw’s ministry which issued a formal response to the Pegasus Project media consortium denying that any of the individuals mentioned to the PMO in advance had been spied upon.

thewire.in/politics/bjp-m…
@AjoyAshirwad Vaishnaw was informed of his presence in the leaked database on Sunday but has yet to respond.

In the absence of forensics on the phones, it is not possible to conclusively establish whether Pegasus was successfully deployed against Vaishnaw or Patel.

thewire.in/politics/bjp-m…
@AjoyAshirwad Patel, a member of parliament from MP's Damoh, was recently shifted to the Jal Shakti ministry under cabinet minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat from the Ministry of Tourism and Culture, where he held an independent charge.

thewire.in/politics/bjp-m…
@AjoyAshirwad However, the data suggests that Patel appears to have been a person of particular interest.

The leaked list not only contains phone numbers which belonged to him and his wife, but at least 15 of his close associates.

thewire.in/politics/bjp-m…
@AjoyAshirwad Although The Wire did not approach the two ministers with a request to conduct a forensic examination of their phones as a matter of caution, since both of them were serving Union ministers...

thewire.in/politics/bjp-m…
@AjoyAshirwad ...it has verified that as many as 18 numbers listed in the records were either previously owned by them and their associates or are still being used by them.

thewire.in/politics/bjp-m…

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More from @thewire_in

The Wire Profile picture
21 Jul
BREAKING | #PegasusProject

Two political personalities from Assam, Samujjal Bhattacharjee of AASU and Anup Chetia of the pro-talks faction of ULFA are in the leaked list of potential spyware targets, along with a Manipuri writer. | @sangbarooahpish

thewire.in/government/peg…
@sangbarooahpish On July 16, 2019, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) announced the reconstitution of a ‘high level committee’ to implement Clause 6, a salient section of the Assam Accord.

Bhattacharjee's number was added on the list less than a month before this.

thewire.in/government/peg…
@sangbarooahpish The clause is designed to provide ‘constitutional safeguards” to the “Assamese people” and its importance had come to the fore in the wake of the Modi government’s stated desire to amend the Citizenship Act...

thewire.in/government/peg…
Read 8 tweets
The Wire Profile picture
21 Jul
BREAKING | #PegasusProject

In 2018, the phone numbers of 6 senior officials from Mahyco Monsanto Biotech (India) Pvt. Lt and Monsanto India were selected as possible candidates for surveillance.

thewire.in/government/mon…
In February 2018, the then BJP govt in Maharashtra set up a special investigation team (SIT) to probe companies that were allegedly selling or releasing unapproved herbicide-tolerant (HT) transgenic cotton, or Bt cotton, seeds in the state.

thewire.in/government/mon…
In particular, the state had accused several seed companies of surreptitiously releasing the seeds in several cotton-growing districts of Maharashtra, and parts of Gujarat, Telangana and Karnataka.

thewire.in/government/mon…
Read 9 tweets
The Wire Profile picture
21 Jul
BREAKING | #PegasusProject There is circumstantial evidence to believe the attempt to surveil Gagandeep Kang – today a household name because of her work on the SARS-CoV-2 virus – is linked to the Nipah virus outbreak. | @1amnerd

thewire.in/government/peg…
@1amnerd Around the same time, between April and July 2018, the name of another individual shows up as having been selected for potential surveillance.

This individual, who did not consent to being named...

thewire.in/government/peg…
@1amnerd ...was involved in a collaboration that included the Manipal Centre for Virus Research (MCVR), to monitor the Nipah outbreak.

In February 2020, India’s health ministry alleged that MCVR was storing Nipah virus samples without the proper safeguards.

thewire.in/government/peg…
Read 7 tweets
The Wire Profile picture
20 Jul
BREAKING | #PegasusProject

The numbers of Umar Khalid, Ambedkarite activist Ashok Bharti, Bela Bhatia, railway union leader Shiv Gopal Mishra, and many others are listed in the database of those potentially targeted for surveillance.

thewire.in/rights/from-am…
The list also includes former JNU students Anirban Bhattacharya and Banjyotsna Lahiri, anti-coal mining activist Alok Shukla; DU professor Saroj Giri; Bastar-based peace activist Shubhranshu Choudhary and Bihar-based activist Ipsa Shatakshi.

thewire.in/rights/from-am…
.@AjoyAshirwad, @sukanyashantha, and @kabira_tweeting report that their appearance on the list suggests that they were persons of interest to an unidentified client of the NSO Group that was focused on India.

thewire.in/rights/from-am…
Read 7 tweets
The Wire Profile picture
20 Jul
BREAKING | #PegasusProject

In the run up to the toppling of the opposition-run state govt in Karnataka in July 2019, the numbers of deputy CM G. Parameshwara and the personal secretaries of CM H.D. Kumaraswamy and former CM Siddaramaiah were on the list.
thewire.in/politics/karna…
The records indicate that the phone numbers of some of the key political players in Karnataka appear to have been selected around the time after 17 ruling alliance’s legislators abruptly resigned to force a trust vote in the assembly. | @AjoyAshirwad

thewire.in/politics/karna…
@AjoyAshirwad This period also coincides with the selection of a new number Rahul Gandhi began to use after discarding an earlier one he had been operation, and which had been on the list of potential spyware targets since 2018.

thewire.in/politics/karna…
Read 9 tweets
The Wire Profile picture
20 Jul
On the subject of the potential surveillance targeting of the staffer who accused former CJI Gogoi of sexual harassment, @ShashiTharoor says, "It's difficult to understand why an ordinary woman, in this deeply personal case, was being targeted."

@ShashiTharoor "If she was being surveilled, what was found out? If something was found out, who was it told to? Was CJI Gogoi given the fruit of this surveillance? And if after all this surveillance, CJI Gogoi won the case, why was she brought back to the court?"

@ShashiTharoor (Referring to this:)

thewire.in/women/supreme-…
Read 4 tweets

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