The BJP Government has adopted the “toolkit of dictatorship” that it borrowed from British imperialists, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said on Tuesday, after former Twitter Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey claimed the platform was threatened with shutdown unless it complied with orders to restrict accounts during the farmers’ protest.
The Centre has rejected Mr. Dorsey’s claims and instead attacked him saying that under his tenure the social media platform routinely broke Indian law. He quit Twitter in 2021 and made these claims in an interview with a YouTube news show ‘Breaking Points’ on Monday.
Mr. Kharge hit out at the government saying that the BJP is “embarrassing” the country. In a long post in Hindi on Twitter, he said the ruling party’s progenitor, the RSS, had worked for the British and against Indians during the freedom struggle.
The Congress President said the government had tried everything to suppress the farmer’s agitation. Prime Minister Narendra Modi labelled them as “andolanjeevi” (agitators) and other Ministers, following his cue, called them “naxalites”, “terrorists” and “traitors”. “They (govt.) tried to block their (protesters’) way by laying barbed wire, erecting cement walls and laying nails on the road... 750 farmers lost their lives. Far from paying tribute and compensation to them, there was not even a minute’s silence in the Parliament for them,” Mr. Kharge tweeted.
‘Govt. stands exposed’
Addressing a press conference, Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate said, “We demand that the government stop suppressing social media, stop suppressing, coaxing large sections of media into submission.
She also alleged that Twitter had banned Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s account after “pressure” from the government.
Mr. Dorsey’s comments, Ms. Shrinate said, exposed the government. “The Prime Minister is afraid because crores have been spent to build his image and that gets demolished when such truth comes out,” she added.
CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury also reacted sharply to the revelations. “The outrageous manner in which the media ecosystem is being manipulated. Dissent is intimidated, journalists threatened, abused and jailed on false pretext. No amount of denial by the Modi Government can obfuscate the truth of doctoring media content,” he tweeted.
