The BJP on Friday alleged that Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik is trying to project his popularity by creating ‘ghost followers’ in his Twitter account in a robotic way.
BJP State general secretary Bhrugu Baxipatra and secretary lekhashree Samantsinghar made the allegation at a Press conference here.
Baxipatra said there were nearly 6,079 ghost followers out of the total 6,165 people who followed Patnaik in the months of July and August.
The Chief Minister had initiated his Twitter handle in 2015 and the number of Twitter followers were limited to below 1.5 lakh by June 2017, but it has skyrocketed to 6.18 lakh by August 24, 2017 only for the fake ones, alleged Baxipatra.
He further alleged that Patnaik’s Twitter handle, ‘naveen_Odisha’ had added 9,000 followers per day in July-August period this year in comparison to 2.5 posts per day. It was about 100 followers per day before July 2017.
These ghost followers neither have tweeted for a single time nor are they following any other celebrity or politician, alleged Samantsinghar.
But BJD spokesperson Amar Prasad Satpathy said the allegation is totally baseless.
“Naveen Patnaik’s popularity has grown and there is nothing unusual in the rise of his Twitter followers. The BJP allegation is baseless. It looks that the BJP is now jealous of Patnaik for the Best Administrator award conferred on him,” Satpathy said.
IT Minister Chandra Sarathi Behera said that a lot of pro-people programmes have led to the rise in the Twitter followers of the Chief Minister.