Congress leaders and volunteers asked to troll me: Divya Spandana

Divya Spandana said that Congress leaders had been asked to troll her and shared some boilerplate responses in Kannada as screenshots.

Former Congress social media head and former MP Divya Spandana took to T Twitter recently and said that members of Congress were being asked to ‘troll her’.

Divya Spandana, a former member of the Lok Sabha, revealed on Twitter a list of ready responses intended to ‘troll’ her.

She wrote on the micro-blogging website: “So the ‘office’ has circulated these messages among the (sic) congress leaders & volunteers asking them troll me. Save yourself the trouble- I’ll do it myself.”

She also tagged Karnataka Congress president DK Shivakumar and Congress worker Srivatsa.

Better known by her moniker, Ramya, Divya Spandana is a Kannada and Tamil film actress.

In 2017, she came into the spotlight when she took over as Congress' social media head. An earlier HT report notes: “It was under her watch that Congress chief Rahul Gandhi’s follower count on Twitter multiplied. However, when Nikhil Alva was brought in as the communications person for the Congress President, insiders say it led to some friction.”

She quit Twitter in 2019 after a row over her tweet congratulating Nirmala Sitharaman. An HT report from August 2019 states that the party's social media had been on ‘autopilot’ since she quit.

The former MP had tweeted in response to the news that Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee President D K Shivakumar had alleged Karnataka's Higher Education Minister Dr C N Ashwath Narayan to have met party strongman M B Patil seeking protection amid investigations into the police sub-inspector (PSI) recruitment scam.

However, both Patil and Ashwath Narayan rubbished the charge saying there was no truth to it, while some Congress leaders expressed that D K Shivkumar should not have made such a statement casting aspersions on his own senior colleague.

This also led Divya Spandana tweeted that, “People across parties meet each other, go to functions, some even get married into families - I’m surprised @DKShivakumar would say this about @MBPatil who’s a staunch congressman. Shouldn’t the party be fighting elections as one unit? @INCIndia.”

Former minister B Z Zameer Ahmed Khan from Karnataka Congress declared Leader of the Opposition Siddaramaiah as the next chief minister of the state, widening the gap between senior leaders of the party even as Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Council B K Hariprasad said the party’s high command will decide the chief ministerial candidate when the time comes.

A report published by the Deccan Herald said that Congress high command had to step in at one point with a diktat asking all party leaders to stop dropping chief ministerial names.

Divya Spandana took to Twitter and revealed in a long thread of tweets that the 'office' (of Congress party) had come up with a list of responses to her tweets to ‘troll’ her.

The screenshots shared by Spandana read (in Kannada): “You may pls open above tweet link and reply suitably in comments to respond her using any of the following texts," followed with a series of responses.

One of them read: "You've been absconding for years now you want talk about politics again!!! Your social media handles should be banned. Oh people assumed that you deleted your account this is extremely surprising, for you to come up like this I don't think you should be talking about Congress leader or party for that matter."

Another stated, "Where have you been all these years??? Why are you waking up now? Can you please let the voters of Mandya know?? You got into the party because of senior leaders in the party. You have no loyalty to the party or voters. Can you go back to the absconding state that you were in or just delete your accounts. I'm sure you have enough experience in this."

Spandana also reacted to B R Naidu, the party's social media chairperson's tweet which had similar wording to the responses shared by the actress earlier, with a “Good copy paste job.”

Update: Spandana also reacted to one of the responses allegedly sent in by the Congress office by tweeting: “If there’s anyone who gave me opportunities and stood by me it’s @RahulGandhi. Anyone else claiming to have ‘given’ me opportunities is an opportunist. These opportunists have only backstabbed and tried to suppress me. Everything you see on TV is a farce to conceal their devious mind.”