New Delhi : Suspicions are now stronger that BJP and centre that overturned Congress-JDS government using Pegasus must have used the same ruse in Madhya Pradesh and other states that saw Congress fall after coming to power. That could possibly explain why Congress MLA's in Madhya Pradesh defected to BJP en masse felling Kamal Nath government almost immediately after Cong-JDS government was pulled down in Karnataka. Kamal Nath had tried desperately to hold back dissenters, however, the MLAs were driven to ditch the party in the end. Thanks to Pegasus, BJP saw through all of Congress’s strategies and deceptively leveraged on them to see its goal.
Out of fear of being tapped, several leaders use mobiles belonging to their aides or confidantes - the reason why Pegasus scooped into phones of the private secretaries of Kumaraswamy and Siddaramaiah. Also targeted on that logic was police constable Manjunath Mudhe Gowda - a security team personnel of former Chief Minister HD Deva Gowda.
Rahul Gandhi had swapped his phone for a new one during the time of Congress-JDS govt fall in Karnataka. And not so coincidentally, Rahul Gandhi’s phone number had gotten into the Pegasus 'hit list' just around that time. Both Congress and JDS did everything in their powers to defend their coalition rule in Karnataka. The attempts made by current PCC President DK Sivakumar in order to meet with dissent MLAs at the time was one such effort. The Assembly Speaker too tried to stall dissent. On his end, he had rejected resignations tabled by a majority of MLAs. However, the then Attorney General Mukkal Rothagi approached the Supreme Court and secured a favourable verdict from Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi. Post his retirement, the Modi Government appointed Ranjan Gogoi as member of the Rajya Sabha.
In the Karnataka Assembly elections of 2018, although BJP fared as single largest majority party securing 105 seats of the total 224, Congress and JDS formed a bigger coalition. Still the BJP governor in state, Vajubhai Vala, invited Yediyurappa and team to form the government at first. However Yediyurappa failed the floor test to prove majority following which, the Kumaraswamy-headed coalition with Congress came to power. However, soon after gaining power at the centre a second time in 2019, the Modi Government rolled its plans to overthrow Cong-JDS rule and aided by Pegasus spyware, meeting that goal became rather easy..
