Cambridge Analytica row: Amrish Tyagi denies links with company, says OBI never worked for JD(U)

Ovleno Business Intelligence (OBI) director Amrish Tyagi on Thursday denied any links with Cambridge Analytica and said that OBI never worked for Janata Dal (United), according to media reports. “OBI was never associated with Cambridge Analytica (CA). Any work of any nature, if any, undertaken by CA cannot be read against OBI. We would like to make it clear that OBI was never associated with CA,” ANI quoted Amrish as saying in a statement. [caption id=“attachment_4408719” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Christopher Wylie. Reuters[/caption] “At the time of its incorporation neither of its directors had undertaken any work of political nature,” the statement added. He further said, “The political parties namely BJP, Congress never signed any digital project with us nor assigned any work during any elections so there is no point of any type of Facebook or any other social media data breach. Also as claimed by CA website for 2010 Bihar elections OBI or SCL UK/Cambridge Analytica never worked with JD(U) for any assignment,” reported The Indian Express. Christopher Wylie, the whistle-blower in the Facebook data leak controversy had revealed a list of SCL Group (Cambridge Analytica’s parent company) projects in India on Wednesday. Wylie tweeted that he had been getting a lot of requests from Indian journalists to disclose SCL’s past projects in India. According to Scroll, the British behavioural research company’s Indian arm carried out surveys of voters for Janata Dal (United) during the 2010 Bihar Assembly elections, as well as for a “major political party” during the 2007 polls in Uttar Pradesh. “SCL India was asked to provide electoral research and strategy for the 2010 state elections for the Janata Dal (United). SCL undertook a behavioural research programme targetting over 75 percent of households. to assist the client in not only identifying the correct battlegrounds, but also the right audiences, messages and most importantly the right castes to target with their campaigns,” Wylie claimed. With inputs from agencies