Amid volunteers and voter data row, Opposition targets Prashant Kishor’s I-PAC in Andhra Pradesh

The political strategy and consultancy firm has been engaged in several poll-related activities, including conducting surveys to gauge the mood of the voters in Andhra Pradesh.

The I-PAC also worked with YSRCP in the 2019 elections which brought Jagan Mohan a landslide victory.

Also read: 2 Prashant Kishor proteges cross swords in Andhra Pradesh

I-PAC in midst of political row

“The complete information of the people of Andhra Pradesh, which is confidential, is now in the hands of the I-PAC. This information is being misused by the I-PAC, which is working for the ruling YSRCP,” TDP’s official spokesperson Neelayapalem Vijay Kumar told South First.

“Collecting the personal details of any individual is totally illegal and unlawful. Under the directions of the I-PAC, the names of the voters of other parties are being deleted by the volunteers. The data being collected by ward and village volunteers is ultimately going into the offices of the I-PAC,” he added.

Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan, who had initially flagged concerns about the volunteers, had said the personal data of the public being collected by them was being stored at private offices in Nanakramguda in Hyderabad.

“The Field Operations Agency (FOA), which handles the volunteer system in Andhra Pradesh, has former employees of the I-PAC, who had worked for the YSRCP campaign in the last polls,” claimed Vijay Kumar.

“Mysteriously, all these staff of the I-PAC joined the FOA just after the government decided to have such a system in place to monitor volunteers,” he added.

According to records, the YSRCP government appointed a consortium of companies led by Ram Info Limited as its FOA.

The FOA is the liaison body between the Andhra Pradesh government and the village and ward volunteer network for all communications pertaining to the day-to-day functioning at the grassroots level.

The other members of the consortium are Uni Corporate Solutions, Upadi Techno Services Pvt Ltd, PK Corporate Solutions, and the Citizens Alliance.

“The FOA is nothing but a part of the I-PAC, which is closely monitoring the movement of everyone in the state and is gathering their personal details. The YSRCP, with the help of the I-PAC, is stealing the information of the people and thus threatening the public to toe its line,” said Vijay Kumar.

Related: Who are the ‘volunteers’ — loved by YSRCP, hated by Opposition?

The rebuttal

An I-PAC team member working on the YSRCP campaign ruled out any possibility of the political consultancy using government data.

“How can they claim that we have access to government data just because former I-PAC staff are working with these FOAs?” asked the individual while speaking to South First.

“Anybody can work anywhere. It’s their personal and individual choice where they want to work,” added this I-PAC employee.

“There are instances where I-PAC staff joined ShowTime Consulting and now work for the TDP. It doesn’t mean that data is shared by the staff. It’s a ploy to reduce the conversation to data privacy while sidelining the achievements and good work done by the YSRCP government,” the individual told South First.

A government official told South First that the volunteers never have access to any kind of data and FOAs having that data was a far-fetched accusation.

“The data that is collected by the volunteers for the smooth functioning of the several government schemes is daily ‘punched’ into the government database or server. The FOAs only ensure volunteers’ attendance and see if they are properly working,” said the government official.

“From time to time, they also conduct capacity-building training and workshops. Other than that, they don’t have any access to any kind of government data.”

Related: Andhra political parties want voters’ privacy protected, can’t have it

Voter data privacy concerns redux?

Data misuse had also become a talking point before the 2019 polls in Andhra Pradesh.

The issue snowballed into a major controversy and the Telangana government in 2019, before the general elections, appointed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to exclusively probe the allegations and complaints of government data misuse by a private IT company in Hyderabad.

A data activist, T Lokeshwar Reddy, filed a complaint with the Telangana police that a private company named IT Grids Private Limited had stolen sensitive data of voters from the Telugu states.

The firm had been employed by the then ruling party in Andhra Pradesh — the TDP — to develop its in-house application: The Seva Mitra app.

A case was registered against IT Grids and its CEO Dakavaram Ashok and others under Sections 20B, 379, 420, and 188 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Sections 72 and 66B of the IT Act.

The then Cyberabad Commissioner of Police VC Sajjanar said that preliminary investigations revealed that IT Grids got access to personal information and sensitive data related to Aadhaar, electoral rolls, and beneficiaries of government schemes in Andhra Pradesh, and was using this data for Seva Mitra.

Sajjanar also said that the information was used to create profiles of voters and use them for political purposes.

The police at that time also suspected a link between the misuse of data and the deletion of voters’ names in Andhra Pradesh.