"Your Legacy": Law Minister's Stinging Comeback To Rahul Gandhi's Jab

New Delhi:  Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has been leading the ruling BJP's offensive against the Congress, accusing the opposition party of having worked with Cambridge Analytica, the firm at the centre of the Facebook data breach scandal. Rahul Gandhi, the Congress president who has been a target of these attacks, hit out at him today, telling the law minister to stop peddling "fake news" and reminding him about the huge pendency of cases in court and vacancies in the judiciary. But Mr Prasad didn't let the jab pass without a comeback.

The massive pendency of court cases, Mr Prasad tweeted, was a legacy of the Congress-led UPA government. The minister said that the NDA government was improving the situation by releasing more funds to create better infrastructure and greater technology application to help dispose cases.

Mr Gandhi listed out the number of court cases pending in the judiciary in his tweet, adding that despite the stack-up, there are 400 High Court and 6,000 lower court vacancies for judges, and insinuated that the law minister was busy "peddling fake news" when he should be focusing on fixing those problems.

Ravi Shankar Prasad shot back at the Congress president saying that his team had failed him again by not doing their homework and that the average appointments of High Court judges had increased under the NDA government. He also shared a chart showing that there was an unprecedented increase in the appointment of judges in the 2014-16 period as compared to 2009-14, when Mr Gandhi's party was in charge at the centre.Ravi Shankar Prasad, who serves as both the law minister and the information and technology minister, had accused the Congress of working with Cambridge Analytica. "This is not just a question of Congress Party's association with a rogue data analysis firm but it is a question of free and fair elections in India and democratic values of our country," Mr Prasad had told reporters.

Rahul Gandhi hit back at the accusations, saying that the BJP was making false allegations to divert attention from the death of the 39 Indians who were kidnapped by ISIS in Iraq. He also referred to an interview by the co-founder of Cambridge Analytica's Indian counterpart, and said that the BJP was trying to stymie a media story on Cambridge Analytica allegedly being paid to sabotage the Congress by spinning "fake news" of the party working with the data firm instead.

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In response to Rahul Gandhi's allegation of the BJP trying to deflect attention from the controversy over the Indians killed in Iraq, Mr Prasad retorted by implying that the UK-based firm was behind Congress' social media campaign, specifying the "Gabbar Singh Tax" jibe.

Cambridge Analytica faces accusations that it harvested data of up to 50 million Facebook users without permission and used the data to help politicians in the US during the 2016 elections and the UK during the Brexit vote. The centre has sent a notice to Cambridge Analytica with a six-point questionnaire asking about their role in India.