Modi, not Rahul Gandhi hired Cambridge Analytica to woo voters: Congress

The BJP on Wednesday questioned links between the Congress and Cambridge Analytica, a data mining firm accused of harvesting personal information from Facebook illegally to influence polls in several countries, and wondered if it will now depend on "data theft" to woo voters. Party leader Ravi Shankar Prasad cited media reports about the opposition party's plan to use the firm's services for the next Lok Sabha elections and to boost its president Rahul Gandhi's profile. He asked Gandhi to explain the company's role in his social media outreach. The firm, the Union minister said, has been accused of using "sex, sleaze and fake news" to influence elections and asked if the Congress too plans to walk the same path.

"The Congress must explain if it has engaged in data trade with Cambridge Analytica," he said, questioning the opposition party's "silence" despite numerous reports of its link with the company.
Prasad, the law and IT minister, used the occasion to warn Facebook of stringent legal action against any misuse of data of more than 200 million Indians on its platform. Targeting the Congress, he said the number of Gandhi's Twitter followers had shot up recently and wondered if it was due to the services of the firm that he achieved this "fake popularity".