The Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy government might have succeeded in getting a House Committee of the state legislature appointed to probe into the alleged procurement of Pegasus spyware based by the previous Telugu Desam Party government headed by former chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu.
But experts say it is very difficult for the Jagan government to prove it, even if the TDP government had really bought the spyware.
“It would only help the YSRC gain political mileage for now, but if it cannot prove it, it might backfire on the party,” an expert said.
According to this expert, there would be no official agreements between the governments and the Pegasus spyware suppliers.
“No official payments are made to the company and there would be no auditing for the same,” he said.
In such instances of purchasing secret equipment or software, the police department would make payment from its special allocations.
“The police department or the intelligence wing always have certain secret funds at their disposal, which is generally used for funding the informer network or procuring some special equipment,” he said.
These funds are not accounted for and are shown as part of the overall police department.
“Maybe, the Naidu government had spent this money to procure Pegasus. But it won’t be there in the records. Only a few officials very close to the government would know about the same,” he said.
The expert further said even the present YSRC government might have had access to this spyware and must be using the same to keep surveillance on its political rivals.
“So, nothing might come out of the probe of the House Committee. At the most, they would get a confirmation from the West Bengal chief minister to target Naidu politically,” he added.