Surveillance may have played role in toppling Karnataka govt in 2019: Report

In the run up to the toppling of the oppositionrun state government in Karnataka in July 2019 the phone numbers of then Deputy Chief Minister G Parameshwara and the personal secretaries of then Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy and former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah were selected as possible targets for surveillance The Wire reportedThe Wire reviewed the records of the numbers that were of interest to an Indian client of Israels NSO Group the creator of the Pegasus spywareThe numbers form part of a leaked database accessed by the French media nonprofit Forbidden Stories and shared with an international media consortium as part of what is called the Pegasus ProjectNSO sells its Pegasus spyware whose use involves the crime of hacking into a smartphone under Indian law only to governments Neither NSO nor the Narendra Modi government has denied that India is a customer The Wire reportedThe records indicate that the phone numbers of some of the key political players in Karnataka appear to have been selected around the time when an intense power struggle was taking place between the BJP and the Janata Dal SecularCongressled state government in 2019 after 17 ruling legislators belonging to the ruling alliance abruptly resigned to force a trust vote in the state AssemblyThis period also coincides with the selection of a new number that former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi began to use after discarding an earlier one he had been operating and which had been on the list of potential spyware targets since 2018The Wire reported that in the absence of digital forensics it is not possible to conclusively establish that these Karnataka politicsrelated phones were infected or subjected to an attempted hackHowever the timing surrounding their selections as possible candidates for surveillance is crucial as during the political power game that played out in the southern state the Congress and the JDS had alleged that the BJP actively backed by the Union government was attempting to topple their coalition government by poaching their party legislatorsIn its review of the leaked data The Wire found that two phone numbers belonging to Satish the personal secretary of then Chief Minister Kumaraswamy were selected for potential targeting in mid2019 at a time when the CongressJDS government was struggling to win back the rebelsWhen The Wire reached out to him to inform about his presence on the leaked list he refused to comment but confirmed that he was using the phone number in 2019The phone number of former Congress Chief Minister Siddaramaiahs personal secretary Venkatesh was also added in the same periodSources close to Siddaramaiah said that the former CM hasnt been using a personal phone for many years and relies on his aides for phone conversations Therefore the selection of Venkateshs phone number as a potential target for surveillance in this period assumes immense significanceOn similar lines then sitting Congress Deputy CM Parameshwara was also selected as a potential candidate during the political controversy in KarnatakaThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever