Modi first leader in free world to run an army of trolls: Cong

NEW DELHI: Faced with an insistent barrage of attacks from Narendra Modi supporters on social media, Congress on Wednesday accused the Prime Minister of being the “first leader in the free world to run an army of trolls”.

Party spokesman Ajoy Kumar claimed that the rise of Modi as the Prime Minister is “directly linked with exponential rise of abuse and hate-mongering on digital media.” Given the low entry barrier, relatively hidden identity and zero accountability, creating and propagating fake news and attacking individuals based on race, gender, religion, region and caste has been the “modus operandi” of BJP, he alleged. “It is unprecedented that Prime Minister of the country follows, meets and actively encourages such trolls,” he claimed. Sadhvi Khosla, a former Modi supporter, has recently “exposed” these scandalous practices to a noted journalist. “Shockingly, the troll army are now senselessly attacking Khosla and the journalist,” said Kumar at the AICC briefing showing video clips of the trolls and detailing how some businessmen were active in this campaign from the beginning.

He claimed that some of these scandalous practices to “berate, humiliate and threaten” are by identifying people, who have written anything criticising Modi, and attack them, bully them, threaten them with a view to silence their voice into submission.