TMC condemns 'blocking' of Congress's Twitter accounts

Kolkata, Aug 12 (PTI) The Trinamool Congress on Thursday condemned the alleged blocking of the Congress's official Twitter account, questioning whether it was linked to opposing the politics and policies of the BJP.

The Congress alleged that the party's official Twitter account and those of a large number of its leaders were blocked by the microblogging site.

"What's going on @Twitter @TwitterIndia @jack What's going on? We strongly condemn the blocking of the accounts of @INCIndia and senior leaders of the Congress party," TMC Rajya Sabha party leader Derek O'Brien tweeted.

The TMC's West Bengal unit general secretary Kunal Ghosh said it was a dangerous trend.

"It means the BJP henceforth will control the social media platforms as well. They will control the narrative and will also decide who can tweet and who cannot. It has to be looked into whether this blocking of Congress's Twitter handle is linked with its opposition to the policies and politics of the BJP," he said.

Congress social media department head Rohan Gupta said the party's official Twitter account and around 5,000 accounts of its top leaders and workers had been blocked by Twitter.

The Twitter accounts of AICC general secretaries Randeep Surjewala, KC Venugopal, Ajay Maken, party's whip in Lok Sabha Manickam Tagore, Assam in-charge and former Union minister Jitendra Singh and Mahila Congress president Sushmita Dev have also been locked, the party said.

This comes close on the heels of the blocking of party leader Rahul Gandhi's Twitter account after he shared pictures of the family of the nine-year-old alleged rape and murder victim last week in violation of the law. PTI PNT SOM SOM