Several Opposition parties including Congress slammed the Centre over former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s claims that the micro blogging platform was threatened with shutdown by the Modi government unless it complied with orders to restrict accounts during the one year long farmers’ protest.
While Centre and BJP leaders has rubbished the charges, saying Dorsey’s Twitter regime had a problem accepting the sovereignty of Indian law, Congress urged the Centre to stop “suppressing” social media platforms and journalists. TMC spokesperson and Rajya Sabha MP Derek O’Brien tagging Dorsey remarks alleged that “Modi and his boys were not only intimidating farmers during the protests, see what else they did!”
Congress also demanded answers from the Modi government over the issue and alleged that there cannot be bigger proof of the “weakening of democracy” in the country by targeting institutions. Dorsey, who quit as Twitter CEO in 2021, made the sensational allegation in an interview with the YouTube news show Breaking Points on Monday.
While Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said it is “wrong” and “unfair” if attempts were made to scuttle farmers’ protests, Rajya Sabha MP and Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray faction) leader Priyanka Chaturvedi alleged that the BJP and the government tried to “crush” the farmers protest.
CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury hit out at the government and said the media ecosystem is being manipulated in an “outrageous manner”. “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 said in a tweet
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said the political progeny of BJP-RSS, who stood against Indians and fought in favour of the British in the freedom movement, should not pretend to be nationalists over the former Twitter CEO’s remarks.
“The BJP has adopted the toolkit of dictatorship from the British rulers. What did the Modi government not do to crush the farmer’s movement? Prime Minister Modi himself called our ‘Annadata’ farmers ‘Andolanjeevi’. The Uttar Pradesh chief minister accused the farmers of accepting foreign funds. BJP ministers and leaders called farmers Naxalites, terrorists and traitors.”
At the AICC Press conference, Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate said the party demands that the government stops suppressing social media, stops suppressing, coaxing large sections of media into submission. “Opposition voices are regularly being suppressed by the government,” she alleged.
Congress chief spokesman Jairam Ramesh said, “During the farmers’ agitation the cowardly BJP government threatened to shut down Twitter and raid the homes of their employees.”