New Delhi, Jan. 20 (PTI): A day before the open house discussion on differential pricing of data, a full-scale war of words has broken out between telecom regulator Trai and Facebook, the online social networking service, over the Net neutrality debate.

Terming Facebook's action as diversionary, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) said the whole consultation exercise had been reduced to "a crudely majoritarian and orchestrated poll".

"Neither the spirit nor the letter of a consultative process warrants such an interpretation which, if accepted, has dangerous ramifications for policy-making in India," Trai said in its letter to Facebook on January 18.

According to the regulator, the campaign by Facebook to defend its free Internet platform Free Basics in India is "wholly misplaced" as "the consultation paper is on differential pricing for data services and not on any particular product or service".

Facebook India today responded to Trai's allegations, saying it's being singled out. "We would note that we are not aware of a similar request (from Trai) having been made to any other commentator who did not answer these specific questions," it said in the reply.

"And we continue to believe that the original comments submitted were responsive to the general questions raised in the consultation paper, which clearly covers such topics as the Free Basics programme," Ankhi Das, Facebook public policy director for India, south and central Asia, said.

Trai also spoke of "the self-appointed spokesmanship", in which "you have not been authorised by your users to speak on behalf of them collectively".

The regulator went on to say that despite giving an opportunity to people who shared their views through the Facebook platform, "text of Trai's communication was not in turn conveyed by you (Facebook) to those who had sent responses to Trai using your platform".