Twitter on Saturday removed and later restored the verified blue tick on the personal account of Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu.

Officials of the Vice President Secretariat said the personal Twitter handle of Naidu @MVenkaiahNaidu was inactive for a long time and the Twitter algorithm removed the blue badge.

They said Twitter was in the process of restoring the verification badge. The last tweet posted from the personal handle was on July 23 last year. The account has 1.3 million followers.

The officials said Twitter was contacted after they noticed this morning that the blue tick was removed. Before 10.30 am, the blue tick badge was restored, they said.

"The referenced account has been inactive since July 2020. As explained in the Twitter verification policy, Twitter may remove the blue verified badge and verified status if the account becomes inactive or is incomplete. The verified badge of the Vice President's account has now been restored," Twitter said in a statement.

Twitter said the account has been inactive since July 2020. It said the verified badge has now been restored. The Vice President uses the official Twitter handle @VPSecretariat to send out tweets.