New Delhi: Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey’s claim that the Indian government pressured the micro-blogging platform during a farmers’ protest triggered a political row on Tuesday, with the Opposition accusing the Centre of “suppressing” social media and the ruling BJP charging the former Twitter CEO with making “false” allegations.
Citing Dorsey’s remarks, the Congress said the government should stop “suppressing” social media and journalists and demanded answers from the Modi government over the issue. The Opposition party alleged that there cannot be a bigger proof of the “weakening of democracy” in the country by targeting institutions.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said the political progeny of the BJP-RSS who stood against Indians and fought in favour of the British in the freedom movement, should not pretend to be nationalists over former Twitter CEO’s remarks.
“BJP leads in embarrassing the country.... We will continue to foil BJP’s conspiracy to end democracy in the country,” Kharge said in a tweet in Hindi.
At a press conference, Congress spokesperson and head of the party’s social media department Supriya Shrinate said the government should stop suppressing social media and coaxing large sections of the media into submission.
“Opposition voices are regularly being suppressed by the government,” she alleged.
Shrinate said Twitter had banned Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s account after “pressure” from the government, and alleged that the “truth” has come out after Dorsey’s claim.
“The prime minister is afraid because crores (of rupees) have been spent to build his image and that gets demolished when such truth comes out,” she said, and added that Dorsey would not benefit anyway by speaking out now.
Rubbishing the claims, the Minister of State for IT Chandrasekhar tweeted that Dorsey’s Twitter regime “had a problem accepting the sovereignty of Indian law.”
“No one went to jail nor was Twitter ‘shutdown’,” Chandrasekhar said. “This is an outright lie by @jack - perhaps an attempt to brush out that very dubious period of twitters history.”
Senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad also denied Dorsey’s allegations. Prasad, who was the Union IT minister between May 2014 and July 2021, lashed out at the Congress for doing politics on the “sacked” CEO of the company.
“No threat was issued to Twitter. We did, however, flag anti-India activities being entertained on the micro-blogging site”, Prasad told reporters.
“We did raise objections to Twitter timelines teeming with footage of the Tricolour being pulled down at the Red Fort and police personnel being beaten up”, said Prasad.
Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur said the “false” allegations made by Dorsey were an attempt to cover up “past misdeeds” and Twitter’s internal communications had exposed that the platform was “misused and there was bias and tinkering”.
Thakur said many “foreign forces” get active at the time of elections to vitiate the democratic process and build tension, but such attempts have failed in the past and would not succeed in the future also.
Several Opposition leaders slammed the government over Dorsey’s claims with TMC spokesperson and Rajya Sabha MP Derek O’brien tagging the ex-Twitter CEO’s remarks and alleged that “Modi and his boys were not only intimidating farmers during the protests, see what else they did!”
CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury hit out at the government and said the media eco system is being manipulated in an “outrageous manner”.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said it is “wrong” and “unfair” if attempts were made to scuttle farmers’ protests.