Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren has said that the Pegasus snooping controversy is testimony to the Narendra Modi-led government’s sustained attempts at violating the privacy of individuals enshrined in the Constitutional.

Talking to reporters at Project Building on Saturday evening, Hemant said, “The uproar across the nation over illegal spying by the Modi government is justified and natural as people’s right to privacy has been challenged once again. Whatever is happening in the country, if you ask me, I genuinely don’t know which way our country is headed under this regime.”

On the IT raids on the Dainik Bhaskar Group on Thursday in various cities, the chief minister said, “I am of the view that all constitutional institutions of the country are now only working as weapons of the Union government.”

Hemant, who is the executive president of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) that is leading an alliance government along with Congress and RJD in the state, has been one of the most vocal critics of the Modi regime. He has criticized and blocked the Centre's attempts to allow commercial mining blocks in the country, questioned the government on the alleged mishandling of the Covid-19 pandemic since its outbreak last year, and trained guns against the three contentious farm laws.h

His party, the JMM, has also criticised the Union government over its response to deaths of Covid-19 patients due to oxygen scarcity in the ongoing monsoon session of Parliament while the Centre has maintained that no casualties occurred due to O2 scarcity.

Calling the Centre’s response as a farce, JMM general secretary Supriyo Bhattarcharjee said, “When it comes to taking credit of giving rations, vaccines and the like, Modiji merrily puts his photograph in hoardings across the country. But it hides behind concocted data and interpretations when the time comes to own up for failures."

Taking a dig at ICMR and the Union health ministry, which has been regularly issuing circulars since the outbreak of the pandemic last year, he said, “Everyone knows that when the pandemic Act is in force, all matters related to its handling is governed and directed by the Centre. ICMR, and the health ministry has been regularly issuing protocols right from identifying Covid victims to its hospitalization to medication and even burial/cremation. Has it ever issued protocols to identify the cause of death? NO.

"But now the Centre claims that states haven’t given data and is blaming the latter stating health is a state subject. JMM has been demanding audit of all the deaths in the country. Why is Modi government running away from it?,” he said.