SEDITION CASE: BJP LEADERS QUIT

Several leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Lakshadweep unit have quit the party in protest over the sedition case filed against filmmaker Aisha Sultana for her comments against the island’s administrator Praful Khoda Patel.

The parliamentary panel on information technology has asked officials from Twitter and the ministry of electronics and information technology to appear before it on June 18 to discuss “prevention of misuse of social media platforms”, with people familiar with the matter saying that the issue of the so-called Congress toolkit may be raised by the panel.

The case pertains to a document that the ruling BJP says demonstrates a conspiracy by the Congress to defame Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, while the opposition party has said the document is fake. Twitter labelled posts linking to the document as “manipulated media” sparking off a spat with the Union government.

“The issue is topical and relevant to the panel’s overall discussion,” one of the people said. “The panel members may want appropriate explanations. There will also be other wide ranging discussion as the report of the committee shapes up. If there is quorum, the meeting will be held.”

The schedule and agenda of the meeting has been uploaded on the Lok Sabha website.

The topic has been particularly contentious with BJP MP Nishikant Dubey hitting out at panel chairperson and Congress MP Shashi Tharoor for demanding an explanation from the ministry over its decision to ask Twitter to remove the manipulated media tag from posts made by several BJP leaders. The controversy began when Twitter tagged a May 18 post by BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra and other senior BJP leaders, including Rajya Sabha MP Vinay Sahasrabuddhe and party’s social media in-charge Priti Gandhi, as “manipulated media”.

The BJP alleged the toolkit was aimed at building a biased narrative over the Centre’s handling of the second wave of Covid-19, and the Central Vista Project.

Many top BJP leaders, including its chief JP Nadda and Union ministers Smriti Irani, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Hardeep Puri,piyush Goyal, amplified Patra’s tweet. The Congress reached out to Twitter to tag the tweets of the ministers as well and even registered an FIR in the case.