Pegasus: Officials may have been told to skip last IT panel meet, says Shashi Tharoor

The officials who were to testify 'appear to have been instructed not to attend', he added. Tharoor, however, expressed hope that the Pegasus snooping issue would be taken up by the panel going forward.

Shashi Tharoor, senior Congress leader and chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on IT, on Sunday said the panel’s last meeting on July 28 was “disrupted” by BJP members as they did not want the Pegasus-related allegations to be discussed. The officials who were to testify “appear to have been instructed not to attend”, he added. Tharoor, however, expressed hope that the snooping issue would be taken up by the panel going forward.

Accusing the Centre of “closing the door” on talks to break the Parliament logjam over the Pegasus issue, RJD leader Manoj Kumar Jha on Sunday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi must intervene to end the impasse, and called for extending the Monsoon session to make up for the lost time.

The Rajya Sabha member and an influential Opposition voice also slammed the government for repeatedly stressing it was “reaching out” to the Opposition parties, saying the phrase does not just mean that “with hands in your pockets and a stiff face, you say ‘this is what I have to offer, nothing else’”.

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