Congress seeks suspension of Nadda, Smriti Irani’s Twitter accounts over Toolkit case

New Delhi, May 21: Two days after filing a police complaint in the 'Covid-19 toolkit' case, Congress Thursday wrote to Twitter asking it to permanently suspend the accounts of BJP leaders including party chief JP Nadda and Union minister Smriti Irani for allegedly "spreading misinformation and unrest in the society".

The Congress had Wednesday lodged a police complaint seeking registration of cases against Nadda and Irani, besides BJP general secretary B L Santosh and spokesperson Sambit Patra over the alleged forgery of documents.

The Congress on Thursday wrote to Twitter seeking permanent suspension of the Twitter handles of the four BJP leaders and other party functionaries who had shared the "forged" document.

"We've formally written to Twitter seeking suspension of Twitter accounts of BJP leaders who are indulging in spreading forged documents attributing to Congress," said Congress' social media department head Rohan Gupta.

"While an FIR has already been lodged, the independent fact-checkers too have blown the lid off BJP's propaganda," he also said on Twitter.

The complaint lodged by Gupta and Congress research department head Rajeev Gowda said as Twitter's own policy and rules seek to discourage deceptive/synthetic/manipulated media that are likely to cause harm, "We humbly request you to immediately remove the tweets, or any other such material on Twitter platform".

The Congress leaders also asked Twitter to carry out a detailed probe on the subject and "permanently suspend the Twitter accounts of the individuals, as the said persons are habitual of manufacturing forged content and misusing the Twitter platform for disseminating the same".

Their complaint alleged that the "gross misuse" of the Twitter platform by the senior functionaries of the ruling party has led to large-scale dissemination of "false information and has the potential to cause social unrest in the country", amidst the current pandemic.

"The said BJP leaders in a pre-planned criminal conspiracy, prepared a forged & fabricated the letterhead of the INC Research Department and thereafter printed certain mischievous, false and fabricated content on the same, for the purpose of vide dissemination through their official Twitter handles, with the clear intent to cause social unrest, communal disharmony in order to fuel hate and escalate violence in various parts of India," they party has alleged in the complaint.