A former BSF chief, whose appointment as the central election observer in West Bengal in 2019 Lok Sabha polls had stoked controversy with chief minister and Trinamul supremo Mamata Banerjee questioning his prior appearance in an RSS-backed-NGOs workshop in Kolkata, in uniform, has ended up in the target list of Pegasus spyware, fuelling speculations that
the “Indian client” who used it may have been “confirming the extent to which the BSF officer sympathised with the RSS.”
The former BSF chief KK Sharma had drawn much flak from the Trinamul Congress during the 2019 polls as the party alleged that his appointment as the central observer in Bengal is an attempt to choke democracy.
The Trinamul supremo Miss Banerjee, in a press conference, had shown the media a photograph of Sharma hobnobbing with RSS leaders in uniform at the event in Kolkata.
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She then had alleged “bias” and an attempt by the Union Home ministry to misguide Election Commission. It may be recalled that it was the 2019 Lok Sabha election that for the first time instilled confidence in the BJP leadership in Bengal to rise as the principal Opposition to TMC in the state with a record vote-share. However, the current reports that have surfaced, has sought to provide substance to Miss Banerjee’s apprehension surrounding KK Sharma.
The leaked records include three phone numbers used by Sharma, two of which he still uses after his retirement in 2018, indicating he was very much a person of interest to the “Indian client” of the NSO Group during the time
he was in service as the BSF chief.
The Wire reported that the purpose of surveillance on Sharma is still unclear unless the “Indian client” in question was interested in studying the extent to which Sharma actually “sympathised” with the RSS, and whatever it learnt about his leanings clearly did not disqualify him from a key postretirement assignment.
Soon after Sharma retired, the Election Commission (EC) appointed him a special central police observer for the impending Lok Sabha elections in West Bengal and Jharkhand. His order was to oversee the deployment and other security-related issues in the said states.
