New Delhi,
The government today warned social media platforms, including Facebook and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg, of “strong action” if any attempt was made by them to influence the country’s electoral process through undesirable means.

The BJP cautioned Congress president Rahul Gandhi of a “probe” into his “meeting” with Alexander Nix, the sacked CEO of Cambridge Analytica — a company accused of using personal information and data sourced from Facebook in its voter research for US President Donald Trump and others.

The issue relates to India’s national interest and national security, Law and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said. He accused the Congress of employing services of a company using “illegal means of data manipulation to subvert democratic process”. Cambridge Analytica has been roped in by the Congress to run its 2019 campaign, he said.

The IT Minister also cautioned Zuckerberg of repercussions under the IT Act in case any data breach came to light. As many as 20 crore Indians were using Facebook, effectively making it the company’s largest market outside of the US, he said.

The Congress, however, claimed it had never hired the services of Cambridge Analytica. In fact, it was the BJP that repeatedly used its services for elections, it alleged. “The BJP used the firm for Bihar elections and to achieve its Mission 272-plus,” Congress media head Randeep Surjewala said.

“The BJP’s factory of fake news has produced one more fake news product,” Surjewala said, adding that the company’s website claims to have conducted research and communication campaign for the BJP through an analysis of the electorate for the 2010 Bihar poll.