Leader of the Congress party in the Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury on Saturday said his Twitter handle was hacked, a remark that came after a controversial tweet was posted from his handle on former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi’s death anniversary.
Chowdhury denied that he used the phrase “when a big tree falls, ground shakes” along with a photograph of Rajiv Gandhi while paying tributes to the former PM. Rajiv Gandhi had said “earth shakes when a big tree falls”, which was seen by critics as justifying the anti-Sikh violence following the assassination of his mother and the then prime minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards.
“My Twitter handle was hacked. Why should I make such statements?” Chowdhury told Hindustan Times.
On May 21, 1991, Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by a Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) suicide bomber during an election rally in Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu.
The controversial tweet was deleted soon after it appeared on Chowdhury’s handle and another post was made with a changed text accompanying Rajiv Gandhi’s image.
“A malicious campaign is propagated by those forces inimical to me. The tweet against my name in the tweeter account has nothing to do with my own observation,” Chowdhury tweeted soon after the controversy broke out.
{{/usCountry}}“A malicious campaign is propagated by those forces inimical to me. The tweet against my name in the tweeter account has nothing to do with my own observation,” Chowdhury tweeted soon after the controversy broke out.
{{/usCountry}}The Bharatiya Janata Party’s IT cell head Amit Malviya said: “Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury has decided to call a spade a spade. Gandhis be damned.”
“An FIR has been lodged at the South Avenue Police Station in New Delhi,” Chowdhury said. In the police complaint, the Congress leader said: “Today, an unscrupulous, biased and a content tainted with absolute malafide was posted on my Twitter account when I was busy with the party programme on the dais and did not carry my mobile phone.”