Ravi Shankar Prasad says Cong has links with Cambridge Analytica, warns Facebook

Prasad alleged that the Congress party committed data theft and manipulated data to win elections. He questioned the role of Cambridge Analytica, which was named in an investigative report by Britain's channel 4 for having harvested data of up to 50 million Facebook users without permission and using them to help politicians.

  "Congress has links with Cambridge Analytica... will Congress party depend upon data manipulation and theft to win votes? Mr. Rahul Gandhi should explain the role of Cambridge Analytica in his social media profile," Prasad asked while addressing a press conference.

On the use of social media, Prasad said the Government has empowered every citizen "who can ask us questions directly now".

"But abuse of social media that too by using foreign firms will not be acceptable."

"20 crore Indians are on Facebook," he said, turning his focus on the Facebook founder who hasn't spoken on the data breach so far."

"In the wake of recent data theft from Facebook, let my stern warning be heard across the Atlantic, far away in California," the minister said.

"Mr Mark Zuckerberg, You better note the observation of IT Minister of India. We welcome the Facebook profile from India are the highest in the world. But if any data theft of Indians is done with the collusion of Facebook system, this shall not be tolerated. We have got stringent power under IT act. We shall use it including summoning you in India," Prasad minister said.

However, Congress said whatever is being said about the party's links with CA is absolutely false.

"News about Congress engaged/engaging with Cambridge Analytica is absolutely false," Congress party's social media head Divya Spandana tweeted.

Spandana further said the BJP is trying to distract from the controversy over the killing of 39 Indian hostages by ISIS in Iraq.

"Can you @rsprasad please tell us why your Govt lied to us about the 39 Indians who died in Iraq? You hid the information and now you’re trying to divert attention from the issue by making outrageous allegations against the Congress party.," she further tweeted.

Ravishankar's attack on the Congress came  came hours after  Hours after Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari said the Election Commission should investigate which party had or has links with CA.

"In this report on Cambridge Analytica there is an ostensible claim by them or the jurno’s that they have worked on Indian elections/campaigns. Election Commission should enquire/recommend investigation what services & to whom they were offering in India," Tiwari had tweeted.