Bengaluru, Jul 21 (IANS): Karnataka Congress will organise a protest near the Raj Bhavan here on Thursday against the illegal surveillance on Indian citizens using the Pegasus spyware developed by Israels NSO Group.

Senior Congress leaders are going to meet in the Vidhana Soudha before heading towards the Raj Bhavan.

Opposition leader Siddaramaiah will lead the protest condemning the phone-tapping of Supreme Court judges, senior leaders of the Congress, BJP as well as mediapersons and activists.

The state Congress has demanded a probe into the spyware row under the monitoring of a Supreme Court Judge.

Senior Congress leader V.S. Ugrappa stated that the BJP leaders, though being caught in the scandal, are falsely alleging that phone-tapping is the culture of Congress, adding that Rajya Sabha MP and senior BJP leader Subramanian Swamy has endorsed that phone-tapping was done.

"It (snooping) has been done on our national leaders. When the coalition government supported by the Congress was in power in Karnataka, the phones of then Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy, then Deputy CM G. Parameshwara, former CM Siddaramaiah and ex-Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda were tapped. The same had been done in West Bengal and other states," Ugrappa said.

If the Central government can hand over the Bofors scam that took place in 1989 to a Joint Session Committee in 2021, why is the BJP quiet in this case, he asked.

Former minister H.M. Revanna asked that if France can conduct a high-level inquiry into the snooping scandal, why can't the Indian government probe the matter.

Whenever parties other than the Congress have come to power, such activities have taken place, he claimed.