Rahul Gandhi ‘maligning country on foreign soil’

Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur has accused Congress leader Rahul Gandhi of maligning India on foreign soil because of being unable to deal with successive electoral defeats after the latter claimed that he was under surveillance by intelligence agencies with the use of Israel spyware Pegasus.

Thakur’s remarks came after Gandhi claimed in a speech at Cambridge University that Indian democracy was under threat and that several politicians, including himself, were under surveillance using Israeli spyware Pegasus.

“We can understand his hatred towards Prime Minister Modi, but the conspiracy to malign the country on foreign soil with the help of foreign friends raises questions on the agenda of the Congress,” Thakur said.

He also wondered what prevented Mr Gandhi and other Congress leaders from submitting their phones to a Supreme Court-appointed technical committee that probed the Pegasus snooping issue. “On Pegasus, what was the compulsion for Rahul Gandhi that he and other leaders did not deposit their mobile phones? What do you want to hide? It has become their habit to defame the country by using foreign soil and foreign friends,” he said.

“Once again, the Congress lost in the elections but their bankruptcy was evident when they lost no opportunity to malign India from foreign soil,”he said.

He urged Gandhi to “at least listen” to what Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni had to say about Prime Minister Narendra Modi.