West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday revealed that her government was offered the controversial Pegasus spyware for ₹25 crore., a proposal she had turned down.
“They were selling their machines [software] everywhere. So, they had come to our police also and pitched a price of ₹25 crore. This was four to five years ago. When the information reached me, I said we don’t want it,” the Chief Minister told journalists at the State Secretariat. Ms. Banerjee was responding to a question on whether the company had approached the West Bengal Government.
“If it [Pegasus] was used for the benefit of the country or for security reasons, then it was a different matter altogether, but it has been used for political purposes, against judges, officers, which is not welcome at all,” she alleged. The Chief Minister, while participating in a discussion in the State Assembly on the issue of allocation budget to the Home Department, on Wednesday had said that the Pegasus spyware was offered to her government. She also added that the Andhra Pradesh Government had used the software “during Chandrababu’s (Naidu) time”.
