In what comes as a setback to the Congress, whistle-blower in the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Christopher Wylie, confirmed that the grand old party was a client of Cambridge Analytica.
Testifying before the British parliamentary committee, Wylie, a former employee of Cambridge Analytica, said the firm had worked extensively in India and added that "I believe their client was Congress," according to media reports.
"I believe their client was Congress but I know that they have done all kinds of project. I don’t remember a national project but I know regionally," he was quoted as saying.
"India’s so big that one state can be as big as Britain. But they do have offices there, they do have staff," he further said, reveal media reports.
Cambridge Analytica’s parent firm is Strategic Communications Laboratories (SCL). "The SCL India is a venture between Oveleno Business Intelligence, India and SCL Group, London," states the OBI website. "We carried out a psephological study and opinion polling for a national party to identify swing voters in 2012 Uttar Pradesh elections," OBI lists in its list of 'past experience'.
Cambridge Analytica is at the heart of the data theft controversy for allegedly harvesting personal profiles of more than 50 million Facebook users to sway election campaign in favour of US President Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election campaign. The company was hired by the Trump side to manage its election campaign. While Cambridge Analytica denied the allegations, the media reports have caused concerns across the globe with law enforcement authorities from the US and the UK summoning Cambridge Analytica and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg.
Reacting to the claim, Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad sought an apology from the Congress saying the revelation by the whistle-blower has exposed the lies of Rahul Gandhi who denied any such ties.