Breaking: Ankhi Das, employee at center of FB-BJP hate speech scandal, quits Facebook India

FB spokesperson tells me this "has nothing to do with the parliamentary inquiry or the media reports"

TIME understands Shivnath Thukral has been asked to take on Das& #39;s duties on an interim basis.

Thukral worked on behalf of the BJP in 2014 national elections.

My report: https://time.com/5904162/ankhi-das-facebook-india/">https://time.com/5904162/a...

In 2019, Thukral walked out of a meeting where an activist raised concerns about a post by a BJP state lawmaker who suggested Muslims were rapists.

The post was flagged as hate speech internally, FB said, but it remained online for a year until TIME asked about it in August.

There& #39;s a US politics angle here.

FB says Ankhi left of her own accord. But one of her key allies inside FB was Joel Kaplan, popular with Republicans. With Biden likely to win the 2020 election I& #39;d assume Kaplan& #39;s influence is fading.

Is this why Ankhi has gone now?