West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday vowed to remove the Narendra Modi government amidst the raging Pegasus snooping scandal. The firebrand Bengal chief minister displayed her phone saying that she had ‘plastered’ its camera to avoid being spied on by the Modi government.
Banerjee said that the BJP government at the Centre was tapping the phones of opposition leaders. “Pegasus is dangerous and ferocious. I cannot talk to anyone. You are paying too much money for spying. I have plastered my phone. We should also plaster the Centre otherwise country will be destroyed,” she said.
Using the catchphrase of this year’s assembly polls, Khela Hobe, Banerjee said that she wouldn’t rest until the BJP government was removed from the Centre. Significantly, the Bengal chief minister’s speech was being streamed in several languages to states such as Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Punjab, Tripura and Gujarat.
According to Banerjee, ‘Khela Hobe (the game will begin)’ until BJP was ousted from power in all states. She said that the Modi government was using the tax collected from petrol and diesel on spying on opposition leaders.
PM Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah have found themselves at the centre of widespread condemnation after it emerged that the Indian government may have purchased the Israeli spyware, Pegasus, to compromise phones of opposition leaders including Rahul Gandhi, journalists and former Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa.
Banerjee urged the Supreme Court o take suo motu notice of the snooping scandal in order to save this democracy.’
Banerjee had led her party to a historic third term in this year’s assembly polls as her party won more than 200 seats in a 294-seat Bengal assembly.