'We lit a fire to Modi's social media campaign,' says Facebook public policy head Ankhi Das: Report

Facebook’s head of public policy, Ankhi Das posted comments against Congress and supportive of BJP in the company’s internal groups despite their pledge to remain neutral, reports Wall Street Journal.

Das is at the centre of a controversy in India over Facebook’s handling of hate speech posts on the social media platform by members of BJP. She reportedly opposed to ban a BJP politician from the platform for Islamophobic posts.

A day before Narendra Modi’s party BJP won the 2014 General Elections, Ankhi Das was recorded saying, “We lit a fire to his social media campaign and the rest is of course history.” She wrote in another post that, “It’s taken thirty years of grassroots work to rid India of state socialism finally,” commenting on the defeat of the Congress and praising Prime Minister Modi as the “strongman”.

She also termed Facebook’s global elections head her “longest fellow traveler” in the company working with her on Modi’s campaign.

When a Facebook staffer noted that in the early days when Congress had more followers on Facebook than Narendra Modi’s individual page, Das responded that, “Don’t diminish him by comparing him with INC. Ah well—let my bias not show!!!”

Facebook said that the posts by Ankhi Das don’t show inappropriate bias.

“These posts are taken out of context and don’t represent the full scope of Facebook’s efforts to support the use of our platform by parties across the Indian political spectrum,” spokesman Andy Stone said.

Ankhi Das started working at Facebook in 2011 around the when the company rolled out training programs for Indian political parties on mobilising their supporters.

Congress and other members of Opposition parties in India are seeking to question Facebook officials and have written to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg about the handling of hate speech by members of the ruling party in response to an earlier Wall Street Journal report.