A day after Jharkhand Congress’s official social media X (formerly Twitter) account was suspended with few days left for the Lok Sabha poll in the state, the party leadership has fallen back on booth level agents (BLAs) to spread the message of ‘misrule’ of the Narendra Modi-led government among masses.
Jharkhand Congress president Rajesh Thakur said that an emergent meeting was held at Ranchi on Thursday afternoon in which the BLAs were asked to be active with few days left for the start of the Lok Sabha polls in Jharkhand.
“I think it is the first time in the country that a political party’s social media account has been suspended just before an election. But we are not deterred. I will reply to the Delhi police after taking legal advice. We will be sharing party messages through individual social media accounts of our IT cell members till we get a new social media account.
“Our BLAs have been asked to be active and spread the misrule done under the Modi rule in the last 10 years locally among voters,” said Thakur, who has been summoned by Delhi police over the sharing of the video.
Incidentally, booth-level agents are party agents mostly locals who are present at the polling booths during the election day and are mostly known to the voters of a locality.
According to sources in Jharkhand Congress, the Union ministry of electronics and information technology had issued an emergency blocking order against the party’s official X account on Wednesday.
Party sources claimed that the blocking order was issued because the handle had shared the viral video clip of Union home minister Amit Shah earlier campaign speech over which at least one FIR has been filed in Delhi and another has been filed in Ranchi.
“Account withheld... @INCJharkhand has been withheld in response to a legal demand,” says the X handle of Jharkhand Congress.
“The official social media handle of Jharkhand Congress (@incjharkhand) had tweeted the doctored clip of Shah’s campaign speech on April 28 in Hindi in which he is saying that if the BJP forms the government again, then OBC and SC/ST reservation will be ended. As of Wednesday night, the post had 81,900 views, 483 reposts/retweets, 72 quote tweets, 885 likes and 18 bookmarks,” said a Congress IT cell member.
In the video shared by the BJP which it claims as original, Shah is heard saying: “When the BJP government will come into power, we will end the unconstitutional reservation for the Muslims. This is the right of Telangana’s SC, ST and OBC. This right will be given to them and we will end reservations for Muslims.”
Elections to Jharkhand’s 14 Lok Sabha seats will occur across four phases with polls on May 13, May 20, May 25 and June 1.
Thakur had been called to Delhi on Thursday (May 2) but instead, he held a meeting with party leaders in Ranchi. Later in the day, he went to Lohardaga with party in-charge Ghulam Ahmed Mir.
Delhi police Special Branch has issued a notice to Thakur asking him to appear before an investigating officer at 10.30am on Thursday in a case involving the alleged uploading and sharing of “fake videos” of Shah.
Sources said that Thakur has emailed a reply to the Delhi police.