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Minister calls Sibal ‘Mr Zero loss’, gets ‘Chandra shaker’ limerick in response
A war-of-words erupted between the two over Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey's sensational claims about Indian government alleged pressure tactics.
A war of words erupted between former Union minister Kapil Sibal and Rajeev Chandrashekhar, the union minister of state for electronics and IT, after ex-Twitter boss Jack Dorsey claimed that the Indian government had threatened the social media company with raids and shutdowns if it didn't block some accounts during the farmers' protest, a charge rejected by the ruling BJP as “outright lie”. Sibal earlier asserted that Dorsey had no reason to lie about the alleged threats made by the government since he was running a business and had no stake in taking sides, while there is every reason for “others to tell a lie.”
"First of all, I would like to know, why would Jack Dorsey make such a statement. Rajeev Chandrasekhar says that this is a lie. Why would he tell a lie? There is no reason for Jack Dorsey to tell a lie that they threatened Twitter when the protests were going on, that they would shut their offices and raid the then Twitter employees," Sibal said.
"There is every reason for others to tell a lie because they can't accept this," he said.
Responding to Sibal's statement, Chandrasekhar tweeted, “and Mr Zero loss, Privacy is not a fundamental right, Upholder of Sec66A wades in to support Jack,” in an apparent reference to his earlier comments when he was a minister in the UPA government.
Sibal shot back on Wednesday with a limerick.
He tweeted:
What Dorsey exactly said
In an interview with the YouTube channel 'Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar', Dorsey who stepped down from Twitter's board last year, alleged that the Indian government had put pressure on Twitter and said that it will shut down the company in India and raid the houses of its employees.
".....India is one of the countries which had many requests around farmers' protests, around particular journalists who were critical of the government and it manifested in ways such as we will shut Twitter down in India, India is a big marketplace for us. We would raid the homes of your employees, which they did and we will shut down your offices if you don't follow suit and this is India, a democratic country, " Dorsey is heard saying in the interview on the YouTube channel," he said.
Government rejects claim
Rubbishing the claims, the Minister of State for IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar launched a no hold barred attack and said Dorsey's Twitter regime "had a problem accepting the sovereignty of Indian law...It behaved as if the laws of India did not apply to it."
"No one went to jail nor was Twitter 'shutdown'," Chandrasekhar said. "This is an outright lie by @jack - perhaps an attempt to brush out that very dubious period of Twitter's history."
Senior BJP leader and former IT and communication minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said,"No threat was issued to Twitter. We did, however, flag anti-India activities being entertained on the micro-blogging site."
"We did raise objections to Twitter timelines teeming with footage of the Tricolour being pulled down at the Red Fort and police personnel being beaten up", said Prasad, in an oblique reference to unsavory events that took place during agitations against farm laws.
"We pointed out that the act was no less outrageous than the siege of Capitol Hill for which Twitter had shown sensitivity", Prasad, who was IT and communication minister between July 2016 -July 2021, said.
