DEHRADUN: BJP veteran BC Khanduri’s embroilment in a Twitter row could not have come at a worse time for the party which is preparing to hold its extended national executive meet in New Delhi on Monday.
Six tweets in Hindi from an unverified handle @MG_BCKhanduri on Saturday noon surfaced sharing “anguish” and “pain” on behalf of Khanduri, a two-time chief minister and presently the Pauri Garhwal MP. “As armyman, I served the country. The dream that I saw for Uttarakhand during my stint in politics has not been fulfilled (sic),” one of the tweets read.
By late evening all six tweets were deleted but the damage was already done. The social media went abuzz over the tweets which Khanduri denied to have posted. “I don’t know who made tweets in my name and, moreover, I even don’t remember having a Twitter account,” Khanduri told Hindustan Times.
The BJP state leadership is groping in the dark why such tweets were posted using Khanduri’s name. “We will try to figure out the truth (behind tweets),” BJP state president Ajay Bhatt said. The question doing the rounds in the ruling party circle is whether there was any attempt to gain by presenting Khanduri as a sulking leader.
The inner party bickering is not something new in the party. In fact, the timing of the controversial tweets coincides with the party president Amit Shah expressing ‘unhappiness’ during his recent visit to Dehradun ,over the limited presence of BJP leaders on the social media. The ongoing tiff between Cabinet ministers Satpal Maharaj and Madan Kaushik after the Haridwar clash has already embarrassed the BJP government.
{{/usCountry}}The inner party bickering is not something new in the party. In fact, the timing of the controversial tweets coincides with the party president Amit Shah expressing ‘unhappiness’ during his recent visit to Dehradun ,over the limited presence of BJP leaders on the social media. The ongoing tiff between Cabinet ministers Satpal Maharaj and Madan Kaushik after the Haridwar clash has already embarrassed the BJP government.
{{/usCountry}}On Sunday, the Dehradun police filed a case under Section 420 (cheating by impersonation) of IPC and Section 65 of IT Act on the complaint of Ritu Khanduri Bhushan, the 82-year-old leader’s daughter who is the BJPlegislator from Yamkeshwar. “The tweets are an attempt to malign the image of my father and mislead public,” she asserted.
The bio of the unverified Twitter handle shows it was created in March this year. Following the complaint of Khanduri’s son Manish, Twitter removed the handle from which the controversial tweets were made.