Apple alert row: BJP’s Amit Malviya alleges 'George Soros' link

New Delhi: BJP IT cell head Amit Malviya on Wednesday alleged a link between George Soros and the iPhone hacking case. In a post on X, Malviya alleged that as part of a “sinister plot”, billionaire philanthropist George Soros was connected to Opposition leaders who said that they received messages on their iPhones that they were under attack from a “state-sponsored” hacking attempt.

In a post on X, Malviya shared a thread that sought to draw a link between Apple and Soros via AccessNow, a non-profit organisation listed by Apple as its ‘digital security helpline’. Sharing a thread of over 30 posts, by a user called ‘The Story Teller’, Malviya claimed that AccessNow was funded by Soros through the Open Society Foundation. 

“Interesting thread that draws a link between George Soros funded ‘Access Now’ and Apple notifications, supposedly received only by Opposition leaders. It is therefore no surprise that Rahul Gandhi dropped everything and rushed to hold a press conference. See the sinister plot here,” he said. 

In another post, he said that apart from Open Society Foundation, other funders of AccessNow were Omidyar, Ford Foundation, Global Affairs of the government of Canada and the government of Germany. In another tweet, Malviya also sought to draw an earlier associate of Congress general secretary in-charge of communications Jairam Ramesh into the issue, who Malviya claims works with Omidyar. 

He further alleged that since Jairam Ramesh now manages Congress’s communication and is a close aide of Rahul Gandhi, the hacking episode was used by Opposition leaders to create trouble. “Does it get any more murkier than this? The Congress is evidently leaning on everyone, from George Soros to Omidyar, to muddy public discourse in a bid to undermine India’s democracy,” he posted. 

Apart from Gandhi, other Opposition leaders who received the threat notifications include TMC MP Mahua Moitra, Shiv Sena MP Priyanka Chaturvedi, AAP MP Raghav Chadha, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, Samajwadi Party’s Akhilesh Yadav, Congress media head Pawan Khera, journalist Siddharth Varadarajan, Sriram Karri, and President of the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) Samir Saran.