On a day Narendra Modi was appointed the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister’s Office — with officials from the erstwhile Manmohan Singh regime — on Tuesday made a move that saw a strong reaction from the BJP.
The PMO renamed the official Twitter handle from @PMOIndia to @PMOIndiaArchive. It means all older tweets would be archived. This, when it was actually expected to hand over the password and other details to the new regime, rather than rename the outgoing PMO’s handle.
Reacting to the development, BJP termed the move as unethical and disgraceful.
The incident happened in the afternoon with an announcement in the existing handle that they are changing the name to @PMOIndiaArchive. After this announcement, there appeared a fresh blank Twitter account in the existing name — @PMOIndia.
Sources said the PMO account was handled by its Media Advisor Pankaj Pachauri and there were several Direct Messages in the official twitter account of PMO, ranging upto 10,000. In Twitter, messages can be deleted one by one only and deleting over 10,000 messages would consume a long time.
Sources confirmed that this controversial renaming of the outgoing PMO’s account in Twitter was a decision taken by Pachauri, who didn’t want the new regime to access Direct Messages.
Senior officials pointed out that when Government changes, previous regime’s messages in Twitter may be retained or their print out taken to keep it files. “First thing is to hand over the password and new regime will change the password. That is the general procedure,” said a senior NIC official.
“As the messages in official Twitter accounts become part of Government’s messages, as per our Office Manual, the outgoing officials would take a print out of these messages and create a file. These are all specified norms,” the official said.
“There can not be a Twitter handle of ex-Prime Minister in official capacity. The question is who will be authroised to operate it. Ideally and legally, those who operate the official Twitter accounts should hand over to the new regime,” the official said.
later in the evening, Pachauri Tweeted form his personal account: “An Advisory - All our official communications are being archived according to the RTI Act. Copyrights and control remain with the office.”
BJP spokesperson Meenakshi lekhi said that it was unethical and disgraceful to have renamed the PM’s Twitter handle. She said it should have been handed over to the new PM.
“Isn’t @PMOIndia for communication from the Prime Minister’s OfficeIJ An institutional handle which should continue seamlessly. Surprised!” tweeted another BJP spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman.