Senior YSR Congress party legislator from Tirupati Bhumana Karunakar Reddy will head the state legislature committee (house committee) to investigate into the allegations of procurement of Pegasus spyware by the previous Chandrababu Naidu government to spy on the people including the political rivals of the Telugu Desam Party.
The other members of the House Committee include: Abbayya Chowdary, Kolusu Parthasarathy, G Amarnath, Merugu Nararjuna and Maddali Giridhar.
The committee and its terms of reference were announced by Speaker Tammineni Seetharam on the last day of the budget session on Friday.
The committee would study the information available with the government on the methods adopted by the previous TDP government for snooping on the opposition members and the people and submit its report to the assembly.
The assembly on Monday held a debate on the statement made by West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee that in 2017, the then TDP government headed by former chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu had procured the Pegasus spyware from the Israel company NSO Group, while her government had rejected the same.
YSRC member Ambati Rambabu alleged that the previous Naidu government had indulged in tapping of the phones of the opposition leaders, including those belonging to the Bharatiya Janata Party.
He said Naidu would have definitely procured the spyware to keep surveillance on the political rivals.
Finance minister Buggana Rajendranath Reddy said the procurement of Pegasus spyware was a matter of concern not only for the national security but also the prestige of Andhra Pradesh.
He pointed out that in 2017, then state intelligence chief A B Venkateshwara Rao had sought to procure drone surveillance system from Israel through a firm owned by his son.
He said Pegasus spyware was something that would not be procured officially.
“We strongly believe that Naidu had procured it secretly and used it stealthily. We suspect that he might have used to collect the data of the citizens and also the YSRCP leaders,” Reddy said.
The TDP declared that it was ready to face any inquiry into the allegations of buying of Pegasus spyware.
“We don’t mind if the government goes in for even a CBI inquiry,” TDP general secretary Nara Lokesh said.