Full time Twitter troll and Chief Minister without any portfolio – Arvind Kejriwal – is hardly a sport when it comes to handling criticism. From employing bouncers to suppress dissent to taking vindictive actions against journalists who don’t toe the party line, Arvind Kejriwal has displayed great intolerance his short political journey. The latest targets for Kejriwal and his twitter army seem to be influential users who poke fun at the Troll CM.
It all started when @babu_bhaiyaa – a popular fan/parody account of Paresh Rawal – got suspended for “abusive behavior”, as claimed by an AAP supporter went by the name @shikaari_aapiya (this account is now suspended).
This action by Twitter shocked Twitterati, as @babu_bhaiyaa has always been known for his non-abusive tweets. He has more than 180,000 followers including Paresh Rawal himself. babu_bhaiyaa’s account was restored after a few days, but it remains a mystery what “abusive behaviour” Twitter discovered in his tweets.
Next to face the wrath of Kejriwal’s twitter army was the user @india_policy. His mistake was calling Kejriwal a ‘megalomaniac’ when the Troll CM was getting a royal beating from Capt. Amrinder Singh in a twitter fight. Kejriwal retweeted a screenshot of @india_policy’s tweet and within a few minutes, the account was suspended. Another AAP supporter – @SurgicalHero07 – claimed to have reported @india_policy for “abusive behavior via multiple accounts”.
@india_policy’s account was also restored, but he claims to have not got any satisfactory answer as to why the account was suspended.
Then we had @gabbarsingh – a popular twitter account with more than 400,000 followers. The account got suspended soon after his tweet taking a jibe at Arvind Kejriwal went viral on twitter.
The account did come back online, and the user said that the official reason given to him by Twitter was that his suspension was unrelated to his tweet about Kejriwal, but was linked to some flimsy copyright issue. He had posted a tweet about Shahrukh Khan fans celebrating inside a Malegaon theatre by bursting crackers during the Ae Dil Hai Mushkil screening. Then a Fox Star India employee reported it to Twitter saying it’s copyright infringement. Twitter sent a notice. And as the tweet got multiple Retweets, each Retweet was reported as a separate violation, and because of “multiple violations” Twitter suspended his account.
Note the pattern: A major account gets suspended soon after posting an anti-AAP or anti-Arvind Kejriwal tweet, but the reasons given by Twitter are completely unrelated to AAP. Coincidence? If it is a coincidence, then it may have happened again today.
Another account leaning towards BJP, was suspended today. @RajuDasOnline posted this message on Gab.ai, an alternate social network:
Soon, an account called “Bhakt cleaner” claimed responsibility for suspending RajuDasOnline for”abusive behaviour”:
Case No :- 10
We reported severe abusive #Namo6kka account @rajudasonline and got it suspended. Beware abusers we are watching you. pic.twitter.com/JQEWxTAnz4
— BHAKT CLEANER (@BhakT_CleAneR) November 8, 2016
For the record, RajuDasOnline was never known to use any abusive language. As of writing this post, he has not received any official word on why his account was suspended. As with the previous cases, the official reason could be something minor. But is a bigger plan afoot?
