Why no FIR against CA’s Indian arm? Cong to govt

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 22

The Congress on Thursday stepped up its attack on the government in the data theft allegations against London-based Cambridge Analytica, asking why no FIR has been registered against the Indian arm of the company OBI.

“If data has indeed been stolen why has no FIR been lodged against CA’s Indian arm OBI,” asked Congress leader Randeep Surjewala.

Maintaining that the Congress or its chief Rahul Gandhi never hired the services of CA, Surjewala cited the twitter handle of minister Smriti Irani to say, “Why is the minister following a thief?”

The Congress also pointed to a 2017 tweet by Arvind Gupta, who runs the government portal to say, “If CA has been stealing data, why is Mr Gupta praising a company accused of theft.”

The Congress also accused IT and Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad of lying about the issue and said, “The only job of the government these days is generating fake news, including this one about Congress having hired CA. The truth is, only the BJP hired CA’s Indian arm for 2010 Bihar elections and later for their mission 272 plus and in elections in Jharkhand, Haryana and Delhi.”

The Congress also said it would examine all legal options in case the government kept pressing “fake allegations” against it.

‘No compromise on data security’

... as far as data security is concerned, there shall be no compromise. Companies like CA has no place because they have publically claimed that ‘we abuse the system to influence the supporters’. — Ravi Shankar Prasad, Law Minister

Son’s firm had business links with CA: Tyagi

• JD-U leader KC Tyagi on Thursday admitted that his son Amrish had business links with CA’s Indian arm, adding “there has been no transactions with the company”
• Tyagi said his son’s firm had only “professional links” with the CA and the government could initiate a probe
• Amrish Tyagi’s Ovleno Business Intelligence (OBI) is CA’s partner and lists the BJP, Congress and the JD-U among its clients