The Congress on Tuesday wrote to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg over a news report that the ‘social media giant ignored instances of hate speeches by members of the ruling-Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP).

In its complaint, Congress accused Facebook India of “interfering” with the country’s electoral democracy and demanded a time-bound high-level inquiry into the conduct of Facebook India’s leadership, reported PTI.

Meanwhile, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad hit out at the Congress’ top leadership, accusing them of ‘hate speech’ over past comments.

In the letter to Zuckerberg, Congress general secretary KC Venugopal demanded, that till the internal investigation is pending, the company should “consider a new team to lead Facebook India operations, so as to not influence the probe”.

“Set up a high-level inquiry by Facebook headquarters into the Facebook India leadership team and their operations and submit a report to the Board of Facebook within one or two months. The report should also be made public,” Venugopal said in the letter.

Venugopal asked the US firm to publish all instances of “hate speech posts since 2014 that were allowed on the platform.”

“The WSJ article mentions hate speech of at least three other politicians, that were wilfully permitted by Facebook India,” he said.

Union IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad questioned Congress leader Sonia Gandhi over her ‘aar-par ki ladaai’ comment, ANI reported. 

“Is this not hate speech?” the minister questioned.

In his letter, Venugopal wrote that the WSJ report “wasn’t a surprise revelation”.

He said Congress has repeatedly raised the issue of “bias” with many Facebook and WhatsApp executives.

Venugopal said the Congress is joined by other leading political parties in “expressing fear over Facebook’s purported role in manipulating India’s electoral democracy”.