Union Min Rajeev Chandrasekhar loses Twitter verification badge; restored hours later

Union minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar, on Monday lost the blue verified badge on his Twitter handle for a short period of time. The new minister of state for electronics and information technology lost his ‘blue tick’ in a development that could be part of Twitter's service rules. However, the badge was restored within hours.

The IT minister’s verified badge loss came in as big news as it happened amidst the government’s stand-off against the micro-blogging company. Rajeev Chandrasekhar, has been in conversation with the company over its security policy for some time now. However, the company has disregarded any deliberate effort in the ‘missing blue tick’ development.

Twitter officials told ANI that the name change of Rajeev Chandrasekhar's handle could be a reason for the blue tick removal. Rajeev Chandrasekhar Twitter account was earlier using @rajeev_mp as his username. Now, after his induction into the Union council of ministers on July 7, the minister changed the username to @Rajeev_GoI.

Last month, the site had faced backlash after it had briefly removed the Twitter verification badge from the personal accounts of Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu and other senior RSS functionaries. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat had also lost his verified badge for some while. The development was pointed out by Twitter users who shared the screenshot of the official accounts questioning the site about the action.

Unlike Chandrashekar, Vice President Venkaiah Naidu lost his verification due to a different Twitter verification policy. According to reports, the VP’s personal account’s blue tick was removed as it had been inactive for a period of six months. Even then, the badge was restored within hours of being removed just as the online backlashes had started.

Twitter on loggerheads with govt over IT rules

Rajeev Chandrasekhar took charge as the Minister of State in the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and one of his first duties will be to have a dialogue with Twitter. The central government and the US-headquartered micro-blogging platform Twitter has been at loggerheads for some time owing to the new IT rules. Commenting on the same, Chandrasekhar had earlier said that the Ministry shall sit with the new Union Minister and address the issue.

Chandrasekhar had said, "I have just taken the charge. The Ministry doesn't operate on a unilateral basis and this has nothing to do with individual views and opinions. The Ministry will sit with the new Union Minister and address all these issues." For the past several months, Twitter has been involved in a stand-off with the government over the Information Technology laws.

IMAGE: ANI/UNSPLASH