The Prime Minister’s Office (abbreviated as PMO) under the Congress-led-United Progressive Alliance (UPA) had blocked nearly 10,000 accounts on X (formerly Twitter) for ‘making fun’ of late Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
The matter came to light in May 2014 after Narendra Modi was elected to the Office of the Prime Minister. By then, PMO had received 4000 requests to unblock these accounts.
The X (formerly Twitter) handles were reportedly blocked by a team led by Pankaj Pachauri, the media advisor of Manmohan Singh.
How pathetic do you have to be to block 10,000 Twitter users as PM’s media advisor? As pathetic as @PankajPachauri. http://t.co/IUfpLhW8x8
— Rajeev Mantri (@RMantri) May 31, 2014
A total of 10,000 odd X handles, previously censored by Manmohan Singh’s regime, were finally unblocked by the PMO under the Narendra Modi government.
“Nearly 2,000 followers have already been unblocked. By the end of this week, we would be able to unblock all the blocked followers. This number is expected to be around 8,000-10,000,” a BJP member informed DNA in 2014.
In 2012, PMO under Manmohan Singh coerced X (formerly Twitter) to block a dozen parody handles of Manmohan Singh. Following the media uproar, these accounts were unblocked.
The 2013 transparency report by Facebook also revealed that India under Manmohan Singh had made the most censorship requests i.e. about 4765 times.
Manmohan Singh passed away on Thursday (26th November) at the age of 92.
