AMARAVATI: A day after TDP national general secretary Nara Lokesh turned down West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee's claims, former chief minister and TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu said that they did not purchase Pegasus spyware during the term of the TDP government.
He, however, did not refer to Banerjee's remarks on the issue. Citing an RTI response from the DGP office, Naidu said that the YS Jagan Mohan Reddy government itself had admitted that the TDP government had not purchased Pegasus spyware.
Interacting with party cadre via teleconference on Friday, Naidu said YS Jagan Mohan Reddy had spread a false campaign on the telephone tapping issue when he was in the opposition and blamed the TDP government.
"Now, the police administration has revealed that it had never purchased the spyware. It means that the TDP government had not targeted the opposition leaders as alleged by Jagan," said Naidu.
Earlier in the day, TDP senior leader and politburo member, Ch Ayyanna Patrudu, released an RTI response from the DGP office confirming that state police had not purchased the Pegasus spyware.
A TDP activist from Yemmiganur of Kurnool district, Koneru Nagendra Prasad, last September sought documents pertaining to the purchase of Pegasus spyware through the RTI Act from the DGP's office. He wanted the DGP's office to give the details of the office where the Pegasus spyware was installed and names and designation of the officers under whom the spyware was being controlled.
In response to Nagendra Prasad's query, DIG administration and Public Information Officer (PIO) in DGP office stated: "With reference to the RTI application (from Nagendra Prasad), it is to inform that this (DGP) office had never procured such software."
