The war of words escalated, with Congress President Rahul Gandhi calling PM Modi "Big Boss who likes to spy on Indians."
After coming under a stinging attack by the BJP, which alleged that it shared user data from its app with a Singapore-based firm, the Congress took down its official mobile app 'WithINC' from Google play store on Monday. However, it rejected the charges as baseless and played down the move by saying that with barely 15,000 downloads, the app was not in use for over five months.
"The WithINC app is a membership app & has not been in use for over 5 months since we moved membership to http://www.inc.in from 16th Nov 2017. The URL (http://membership.inc.in ) quoted by the media is the defunct URL from the app," the Congress clarified in a tweet.
It also asked people to sign up on INC.in website to "join the most honest and vibrant political movement."
The war of words escalated, with Congress President Rahul Gandhi calling PM Modi "Big Boss who likes to spy on Indians."
"Modi's NaMo App secretly records audio, video, contacts of your friends & family and even tracks your location via GPS. He's the Big Boss who likes to spy on Indians," Gandhi tweeted.
The Congress swung into action soon after the BJP attacked it following a tweet by French security researcher Baptiste Robert, known by his Twitter username, Elliot Alderson.
"The IP address of http://membership.inc.in is 52.77.237.47. This server is located in Singapore. As you are an #Indian political party, having your server in #India is probably a good idea," Alderson said.
Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi was at pains to explain that the Congress's defunct app dwarfed in comparison to PM Modi's personal NaMo app that was being promoted by the government.
"Anybody can say we are transferring data to the moon… If you point out a constructive criticism, we will remedy it. The BJP approach is shoot the messenger. That is the difference," said Singhvi.
Refusing to be cowed down by a flurry of vitriolic attacks by the BJP leaders, Congress president Rahul Gandhi continued to target PM Modi.
"Modi misusing PM position to build personal database with data on millions of Indians via the NaMo App promoted by Govt. If as PM he wants to use tech to communicate with India, no problem. But use the official PMO APP for it. This data belongs to India, not Modi," he tweeted.
Congress media in charge Randeep Surjewala, too, mocked at the BJP for making changes in the privacy policy of NaMo app after the data breach was "exposed."
"Didn't the NaMo App change its Privacy Policy after 23rd March? Was it because it was caught red-handed orchestrating the Massive Data Breach?" he asked in a tweet.
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