The BJP accused Congress of "data theft" to woo voters ahead of 2019 Lok Sabha polls while the Congress alleged the BJP hired Cambridge Analytica's services in several elections, including in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
Cambridge Analytica was founded in 2013 by its parent company, the London-based Strategic Communications Laboratories (SCL) Group. The SCL's India partner is a company named Ovleno Business Intelligence (OBI).
The Ovleno Business Intelligence lists the BJP, the Congress and the JDU as its clients. OBI's managing director Amrish Tyagi, is the son of JDU leader and Rajya Sabha MP from Bihar KC Tyagi.
According to IANS, Amrish Tyagi, in media interviews, admitted that the Youth Congress in Jharkhand, the BJP and the JDU had used its services to conduct research.
OBI on its website claims it works on “political campaign management”. Its lists as its clients ICICI Bank, Airtel, apart from the BJP, the Congress and the JDU.
After the controversy broke out, the website has been taken down. The website also had photos of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Delhi Chief Arvind Kejriwal on its homepage. The BJP and the Aam Aadmi Party have denied hiring OBI's services for their campaigns.
The LinkedIn profile of OBI's vice president Himanshu Sharma mentions that the company handled four election campaigns of ruling BJP, Congress claimed on Wednesday.
Sharma's LinkedIn profile mentions the following achievements of OBI: Managed four election campaigns successfully for the ruling party-BJP achieve its target of 272+ by managing Cell Centre Management Project Profiling of each and every volunteer/supporter who had extended his support to get involved in our Mission 272+, and confidentially maintaining the database provided to BJP candidate as an additional support for national elections and state elections of Haryana, Jharkhand and Delhi.
Refuting the Congress' allegations that it was the BJP which had hired the firm during previous elections, BJP said over 1000 websites and 10,000 individuals have claimed to have a role in the party's win in 2014 polls. "We have nothing to hide," BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said.
London-based firm Cambridge Analytica has allegedly been using Facebook users' data to unfairly influence election results by psychological manipulation, entrapment techniques and fake news campaigns.
Cambridge Analytica also claims to have worked an Indian party, or parties during the 2010 Bihar Assembly Elections on its website, but it has not mentioned who hired it.
"CA was contracted to undertake an in-depth electorate analysis for the Bihar Assembly Election in 2010. The core challenge was to identify the floating/swing voters for each of the parties and to measure their levels electoral apathy, a result of the poor and unchanging condition of the state after 15 years of incumbent rule," it said.
"In addition to the research phase, CA were tasked to organise the party base at the village level by creating a communication hierarchy to increase supporter motivation. Our client achieved a landslide victory, with over 90% of total seats targeted by CA being won," CA claims.