Earlier today, the senior Congress leader and former party president Rahul Gandhi kicked up an online furore after he unfollowed 8 accounts on Twitter.
As can be seen, as of this morning, Rahul Gandhi is ‘following’ 8 people less. While a few could be deactivated accounts, for a politician, usually such high number of ‘unfollows’ usually means that he has unfollowed those Twitter users.
Of these, at least two of them have been known for peddling Congress propaganda.
Among the 8 accounts that Gandhi unfollowed, one of them was that of Pratik Sinha, the co-founder of propagandist website Alt News. It is the same portal that recently came up with a cringe-worthy and unconvincing defence to give a clean chit to the Congress party and extricate it from the toolkit fiasco.
Until a few hours ago, Rahul Gandhi followed Pratik Sinha on Twitter. A screenshot from Pratik Sinha’s profile from a while back showed Rahul Gandhi as one of his Twitter followers.
However, something snapped and the Gandhi scion stopped following the co-founder of the portal that fashions itself as an independent fact-checker, but invariably ends up acting as an outpost of the Congress party, loyally peddling its agenda and spreading fake news against the Modi government.
Interestingly, Gandhi unfollowed the AltNews co-founder at a time when Congress is mired in the tookit controversy that erupted after BJP leader Sambit Patra released a document, allegedly linked to Congress, on social media websites, and accused the party of exploiting the resurgent coronavirus crisis in the country to malign the Modi government.
The controversy intensified when the Congress party, in a bid to disentangle itself from the toolkit saga, shared its documents with AltNews, demonstrating a close association between the two entities. In response, the Alt News obliged and gave a clean chit to the Congress party, declaring the toolkit to be fake, albeit, based on flimsy arguments. It was then speculated that AltNews was working at the behest of the Congress party.
Later, Twitter labelled the toolkit tweets posted by the BJP leaders as ‘manipulated media’, adding fuel to the already raging controversy. It must be noted that Twitter did not provide any proof or evidence basis on which they had marked the tweets as manipulated media. This solidified the speculations that AltNews and Twitter might be working in tandem to undermine the Modi government, possibly at the direction of the Congress party. Now, as the Government of India tightens its noose around Twitter, the unfollowing of AltNews co-founder by Rahul Gandhi could be seen as an attempt to dissociate himself from his supporters and help them appear as ‘neutral’ fact-checker.
Another account that Rahul Gandhi unfollowed this morning is that of propagandist masquerading as stand-up comedian Kunal Kamra. For a while now, Rahul Gandhi had been following Kunal Kamra, possibly because of his patently anti-Modi stance.
However, this morning, Rahul Gandhi deserted yet another of his loyal lickspittle when his official Twitter account unfollowed Kunal Kamra on Twitter.
Netizens react after Rahul Gandhi unfollows Pratik Sinha and Kunal Kamra on Twitter
Nevertheless, Rahul Gandhi unfollowing his blind devotees on Twitter led the netizens into a tizzy, who speculated the possible reasons for the Gandhi scion’s defiant act.
One of the Twitter user commented that Rahul Gandhi has given freedom to his pet pidis by unfollowing them.
https://twitter.com/FakeRainaNephew/status/1399630977345884160?ref_src=twsrc%5EtfwNetizens clearly had a field day.
https://twitter.com/BefittingFacts/status/1399641414187683840?ref_src=twsrc%5EtfwYet another Twitter user conjectured that Rahul Gandhi unfollowed some fact checkers on Twitter, possibly because they could not come up with convincing arguments to defend the toolkit.
https://twitter.com/Being_Humor/status/1399614979834146818?ref_src=twsrc%5EtfwWe, at OpIndia, however, cannot independently verify if Rahul Gandhi had unfollowed his loyal lackeys because he is angry with their incompetence and disappointed with their dedication towards spreading Congress propaganda.