'No reason for Jack Dorsey to lie but every reason for...', says ex-IT minister Kapil Sibal

On a YouTube show, the ex-Twitter CEO alleged there was ‘pressure’ on him from the Indian government during the year-long farmers' protests.

Reacting to the Centre's ‘outright lie' response to former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey's claims on farmers' protest, ex-IT minister Kapil Sibal on Tuesday remarked that while Dorsey had no reason to lie, the BJP-led central government had ‘every reason’ to do so.

Ex-Union minister Kapil Sibal (File Photo/ANI)(Sanjay Sharma)

"Jack Dorsey

Ex-Twitter CEO said :

BJP government during farmers protest threatened:

To shut down Twitter-India offices

Raid homes of Twitter-India employees

Minister denies

Some have no reason to lie

Others every reason to lie !"

A vocal critic of the BJP regime and prime minister Narendra Modi, Sibal, an independent Rajya Sabha MP who resigned from the Congress last year, was the IT minister under then PM Manmohan Singh's Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, holding the portfolio from Jan 2011 to May 2014.

What is the controversy?

Dorsey, who co-founded the social media giant and was the CEO of its namesake parent company until his departure from the role in November 2021 – Elon Musk bought Twitter in October last year but the ex-CEO retained his 2.4% ownership – spoke about India's year-long farmers' protest (Nov 2020-2021), doing so on a YouTube show, ‘Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar.’

There, he was asked by the hosts if, as the chief executive officer, he ever faced ‘pressure’ from a foreign government. On this, the 46-year-old said: "India for example, India is one of the countries which had many requests around farmers protests, around particular journalists which were critical of the government, and it manifested in ways such as ‘we will shut Twitter down in India’… ‘we would raid the homes of your employees', which they did; ‘we will shut down your offices if you don't follow suit’. And this is India, a democratic country.”

How has the government responded?

Rajeev Chandrashekar, the Minister of State for Electronics and Technology, described the claims as an 'outright lie.'

"No one went to jail nor was Twitter ‘shutdown’…India as a sovereign nation has the right to ensure that its laws are followed by all companies operating in India,” the minister said in a tweet.