Rahul Gandhi attacks Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his app, BJP counters

"Hi! My name is Narendra Modi. I am India's Prime Minister. When you sign up for my official App, I give all your data to my friends in American companies. Ps. Thanks mainstream media, you're doing a great job of burying this critical story, as always," Gandhi tweeted.

He also highlighted in his tweet a news report which pointed to allegations of a French cyber security expert regarding data safety in the Narendra Modi App.

Speaking on the App, senior party leader Randeep Surjewala on Saturday tweeted: "IT Minister will not do a press conference on the NaMo App on these allegations of Data Chori! Will the media dare to question Modi ji on the functioning of his App? Will the brain behind this "Data Usurpation" be summoned?What about the 15 Lakh NCC cadets & their privacy?."

The BJP countered Gandhi and said his comments reflected the fright he had for the App.

"We all know that Rahul Gandhi is no match for Narendra Modi. But seeing his fright about the Namo App, is very amusing. When his bots tried to trend #DeleteNamoApp day before yesterday, the popularity and downloads of Namo App only increased. Today, it will be no different!," the BJP tweeted.

"Contrary to Rahul’s lies, fact is that data is being used for only analytics using third party service, similar to Google Analytics. Analytics on the user data is done for offering users the most contextual content," it said.

The BJP and the Congress have been engaged in a bitter war of words over the  Facebook data breach in recent times.

Union Minister Ravishankar Prasad on Tuesday alleged that the Congress has links with Cambridge Analytica, a British consulting company, alleged to have harvested private data of Facebook, while warning the popular social networking site against any attempt to influence India's electoral process.

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.

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.