New Delhi: Congress's Priyanka Gandhi Vadra today questioned Twitter over the blocking of a large number of party handles and the accounts of multiple leaders of the party. The Congress has claimed the handles of 5000 of its workers and leaders have been locked.
Besides Rahul Gandhi -- whose account was blocked after he shared photographs of the family of the nine-year-old allegedly raped and killed last week -- the other leaders whose handles were blocked include Randeep Surjewala, Ajay Maken, KC Venugopal and Pawan Khera. Many of them had retweeted Mr Gandhi's post.
Besides, party handles from several cities, states and Union Territories --. Mumbai Regional Congress Committee, Maharashtra Congress Committee, Gujarat Congress Committee, Rajasthan Congress Committee, Daman & Diu Congress Committee and the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee -- have been blocked.
"Is Twitter following its own policy for the suspension of Congress leaders' accounts or Modi government's? Why hadn't it locked account of SC commission that had tweeted similar photos before any of our leaders did?" Ms Gandhi Vadra tweeted.
"By locking Congress leaders' accounts en masse, Twitter is blatantly colluding with the stifling of democracy by the BJP government in India," read a second tweet.
While Twitter has said Mr Gandhi's post violates its privacy rules, the Congress has accused the BJP-led government of engineering the crackdown.
Earlier today, an Instagram post from the party handle read, "Modiji, just how afraid are you? Reminder: The Congress party fought for our nation's independence, equipped only with truth, non-violence & the will of the people. We won then, we'll win again".
Ms Gandhi Vadra accused the BJP of turning away from the "real issue" -- the alleged rape and murder of a child that has shocked the national capital.
Questioning why the Prime Minister has remained silent on the "heinous crime", she tweeted, The real issue is the Delhi Police disallowing the lodging of an FIR for 15 hours".
Twitter has said its rules are "enforced judiciously and impartially for everyone", and that it took "proactive action on several hundred tweets that posted an image that violated our Rules".
"We reviewed it against Twitter Rules and policies, as well as the concerns expressed as a matter of the Indian law..." a company spokesperson said, adding, "... If a tweet is found to be in violation of the Twitter Rules, and has yet to be deleted by the account holder, we hide it behind a notice and the account remains locked until the tweet is removed or the appeal is successfully processed."
The locking of Congress twitter handles has also been criticised strongly by other opposition leaders. Trinamool's Derek O'Brien tweeted, "What's going on @Twitter @TwitterIndia @jack What's going on? We strongly condemn the blocking of the accounts of @INCIndia and senior leaders of the Congress party (sic)".