After the senior leaders' account now twitter locked Congress party's official handle

The official twitter account of the Congress was locked on Thursday August 12.

The party posted screenshots of a message received on their account, on it's other social media pages like Facebook and Instagram, which showed that the social media platform had taken the said action because the account had "violated Twitter rules" regarding publishing or posting other people's private information without their express authorisation and permission".

The Congress party has blamed BJP, for the Twitter action and wrote on Instagram and facebook respectively,

"Modiji, just how afraid are you? Reminder: The Congress party fought for our nation's independence, equipped only with truth, non-violence & the will of the people. We won then, we'll win again." (Insta post)

"When our leaders were put in jails, we were not scared then why would we be afraid of closing our Twitter accounts now. We are Congress, this is the message of the people, we will fight, we will keep fighting. If it is a crime to raise our voice to get justice for the rape victim girl, then we will do this crime a hundred times. Jai Hind... Satyamev Jayate,". (Facebook post)

Notably, the microblogging site on Wednesday night also suspended the accounts of several Congress members, including general secretary (organisation) KC Venugopal, AICC office bearers Ajay Maken, Sushmita Dev and Randeep Surjewala and Lok Sabha MP and AICC Telangana in-charge Manickam Tagore.

Apart from that, On August 7, Twitter had blocked Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's Twitter account which remains locked for over five days now. The Twitter handle of Rahul’s personal staffer KB Byju was also suspended.

Rahul Gandhi’s account was suspended after the government complained that he had violated the law by posting a picture of a family of a minor Dalit girl who had been gang-raped and killed. The new accounts also appear to have been suspended on the same complaint. All the users whose accounts have been suspended had joined the “Main Bhi Rahul” campaign, launched after Rahul met the girl’s family.

In each case, the notification issued was that the content was found violative of Twitter rules and the user was asked to appeal in case he/she thought it was incorrectly locked.

Reacting to the same, Social Media Head of All India Congress Committee (AICC) Rohan Gupta alleged that Twitter is acting under the government's pressure and has blocked the accounts of more than 5,000 party leaders and workers across India.

Raising questions on twitter's action, he said, "Twitter has blocked its account for violation of rules Twitter acting under government pressure. Twitter is acting under the government's pressure. If it is a violation of Twitter policy, then why the photo of the (Victim's) family was there on the Scheduled Caste (SC) commission handle from August 2 to August 5."

AICC spokesman Pranav Jha said the responsibility for this “illegal action” on Twitter accounts of Congress leaders lay with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and government.