Defamatory, gossip column: Praveen Chakravarty's retort over report on Cong data debacle

Terming it a "gossip column", Congress's Data Analytics chairperson Praveen Chakravarty on Monday issued a strong retort over a media report claiming that party president Rahul Gandhi was misled into preparing for victory by his own team who provided him wrong data for Lok Sabha election results.

The report by Sunday Guardian Live claimed that Chakravarty, who look after the election office and data-analysis of the Congress and was considered as the most "trusted aide" of Gandhi, went incommunicado since after the announcement of the Lok Sabha elections results.

Calling the report a "lie" and an "utter disgrace to Indian journalism", Chakravarty said in a statement, "A recent gossip column about the activities of the Data Analytics department of the Congress party during the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections has been brought to my attention. Every line in that column is a lie. Equally, other similar stories based entirely on unnamed sources, masquerading as investigative pieces, are plain rubbish."

"These are obviously mischievous, defamatory, patently absurd and sadly, and utter disgrace to Indian journalism," read the statement on the party's official letterhead.

Chakravarty also informed that he and his department would continue to work actively for the Congress.

"My department and I continue to function actively from our offices at the All India Congress Committee headquarters, as usual," he said.

The report has also claimed that senior leaders in the party are suspecting that "Chakravarty could have been a BJP mole in the Congress office".

According to the report, Rahul's team was the reason itself for the party's massive defeat in the recently concluded national elections which is why he decided to step down from the top post in the Congress.

Gandhi was made to believe that Congress will be securing somewhere between 164 and 184 seats, the report states.

The Congress won 52 seats in the Lok Sabha elections, which is just eight more than what they won in 2014.