India has had its fair share of Twitter controversies as the social media site gained popularity in the country over the past few years. A sign of its increasing popularity was evident during the Indian elections as between January 1 and May 16, over 58 million tweets on the Indian elections were sent on the social network.
With the notable exception of Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, almost every major Indian politician used the site to reach out to followers, a trend started by Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor in 2009 and mastered by Prime Minister-designate Narendra Modi.
As outgoing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had already decided that he would resign from office after the elections, it was evident that his Twitter handle which used the name of his office ‘PMOIndia’ would have to be given up. With 1.2 million followers, the PMOIndia Twitter handle had fewer followers than Narendra Modi who has over four million followers.
However, late on May 20, Pankaj Pachauri, the media advisor to Manmohan Singh arbitrarily renamed the ‘PMOIndia’ handle to ‘PMOIndiaArchive’. Pachauri used the fig-leaf of the Right to Information Act for this change. However in doing so not only did Pachauri, who was nothing more than the keeper of an institutional handle, surrender the ‘PMOIndia’ handle but also transferred all its followers to the new ‘PMOIndiaArchive’ handle.
Apparently, Pachauri was scared that the incoming administration would delete all of Manmohan Singh’s old tweets. However, according to some people in the know personal Direct Messages exchanged between the ‘PMOIndia’ handle and prominent anti-BJP personalities on Twitter, were the reason for the switch.
But, deleting Direct Messages on Twitter is not a time-consuming process. In fact, if archival records are what persuaded Pachauri to switch the handle’s name, Twitter actually offers a service that allows users to get a PDF record of their old tweets.Interestingly, when the ‘PMOIndia’ handle became available it was registered by a youth in lucknow, however Twitter India acted fast to secure the handle for possible use by the incoming administration.
The BJP has described Pachauri’s move as graceless and demeaning. They have argued that the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) is an institution and is greater than the individuals occupying the office. In fact, technically, the new PMO is responsible for record keeping under RTI of the old PMO. So whether Pachauri likes it or not, he will have to hand over the password to the old Twitter account. More so because, the PMO on Wednesday sought to end the controversy over the change in its Twitter handle, saying all internet-based platforms will continue to remain under the administrative control of the PMO after change of Government.
“All PMO internet-based platforms and communications therein will continue to remain under the administrative control and management of the PMO after the changeover of the Government,” a PMO release said.
However, it remains to be seen whether Narendra Modi will use an institutional Twitter handle to get his message across. He is one of the most followed politicians in the world on Twitter. In fact, Narendra Modi is one of the three people followed by Prime Minister Abe of Japan on Twitter. President Barack Obama still uses his own personal Twitter handle to reach out to the American public on Twitter.Narendra Modi was always more popular than Manmohan Singh on Twitter, but this final act of Manmohan Singh’s office will sully his reputation even further.