After VP Naidu, RSS Leaders Including Mohan Bhagwat Lose Twitter Blue Ticks

The action was taken shortly after Twitter restored Vice President Venkaiah Naidu’s blue-tick verification badge which was removed earlier in the day.

Outlook Web Bureau

Updated on: 5 June 2021 6:23 pm

Twitter on Saturday removed blue tick verification badges from the accounts of several senior leaders of RSS which is the ideological parent of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

Twitter later restored the verification badges after a lot of hue and cry by Sangh sympathisers on social media. The RSS leaders who lost verification badges include RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, Suresh Soni, Arun Kumar, Suresh Joshi among others.

Taking strong objection, Rajiv Tuli, a functionary in Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's (RSS) Delhi unit, told PTI that this "clearly shows biasness and a clear example of 'tech feudalism' by Twitter.

He cited several Twitter handles which have been "inactive but continue to remain verified".

The blue tick, which is a verification badge, was removed from five accounts belonging to senior functionaries of the RSS, the ruling BJP's ideological mentor, sources in the Sangh said.

Later in the day, the verification badge of Bhagawat, Suresh Soni, Arun Kumar, Suresh Joshi and Krishna Gopal was restored.

Tuli said it was "done after much heckling".

According to an NDTV report, the Ministry of Electronics and IT is likely to issue notice to Twitter asking why this was done without "prior intimation".

Twitter on Saturday had removed and later restored the verified blue tick on the personal account of Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu.

Officials of the Vice President Secretariat said the personal Twitter handle of Naidu @MVenkaiahNaidu was inactive for a long time and the Twitter algorithm removed the blue badge.

They said Twitter was in the process of restoring the verification badge. The last tweet posted from the personal handle was on July 23 last year.

The officials said Twitter was contacted after they noticed this morning that the blue tick was removed. Before 10.30 am, the blue tick badge was restored, they said.

Twitter said the account had remained inactive since July 2020. It said the verified badge has now been restored. The Vice President uses the official Twitter handle @VPSecretariat to send out tweets.