DMK president and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin said on Wednesday that the recent alerts sent by tech giant Apple to over a dozen Opposition leaders that the company’s digital devices used by them might have been targeted by ‘state-sponsored attackers’ were an indication that the BJP was scared of the Opposition INDIA bloc.
Alleging that the BJP government had attempted to hack the phones of Opposition leaders, he said it was farcical that Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw had ordered an inquiry after the government itself had committed such a heinous act. He was speaking at the wedding of the daughter of DMK Poonamallee MLA A. Krishnaswamy.
He said there was a question now whether democracy would be safeguarded and preserved in the country. Blaming the BJP for misusing agencies like the Enforcement Directorate and the Income Tax Department to threaten the Opposition parties or anyone who opposed it, he alleged that the situation had reached a point where even phones were being tapped.
He said the emergence of INDIA was not expected by the BJP and the bloc was exposing the “injustices” and the “dire state” of governance under the BJP He added that the trend from the five States going to the polls indicated that the BJP was going to be defeated. The party was indulging in activities like phone-hacking because of its fear of defeat. He urged the DMK cadre to work to defeat such attempts and safeguard India by securing an electoral victory for the INDIA bloc in the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
