BJP Karnataka tweets, deletes, tweets again on Sharjeel Imam & shooter at Jamia
Politics

BJP Karnataka tweets, deletes, tweets again on Sharjeel Imam & shooter at Jamia

A post by BJP Karnataka alleging Thursday's shooting in Delhi's Jamia Nagar was provoked by the arrest of Sharjeel Imam led to a BJP-Congress skirmish on Twitter.

   

The deleted tweet by BJP4Karnataka | Source: http://archive.is/GxrIg

New Delhi: The Karnataka unit of the BJP Friday took down a tweet it posted on Delhi’s Jamia Nagar shooting, but not before screenshots were taken and circulated.

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor posted an image of the deleted tweet which compared a photo of Sharjeel Imam — the IIT-JNU scholar booked for sedition — to that of the gunman at Jamia Nagar, who injured a student. The images were captioned ‘action’ for Imam and ‘reaction’ for the gunman, who was later identified as a minor.

Taking a dig at the BJP, Tharoor asked if their social media was run by juveniles.

“Recent posts by BJP handles which they had to delete. ‘The nation wants to know’ why they put these up. Their supporters wish to know why they deleted them. Unless, of course, their social media handles are also operated, like guns at Jamia, by juveniles?!” the tweet read.

A fact check by ThePrint and fake news debunker SM Hoaxslayer showed that the tweet was posted by the official BJP handle at 7:47am Friday.

Source: http://archive.is/GxrIg

New tweet, old message

The BJP Karnataka later put up another tweet around 2pm with the same images, but revised the caption to read ‘action by govt’ and ‘reaction by anti-nationals’.

 

The Karnataka Congress took a swipe at the BJP, saying the earlier tweet indicated the party was taking responsibility for the attack at Jamia Nagar. This resulted in a war of tweets between the two handles.

In its post, the Congress asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah what action it would take against its social media unit.

In response, BJP Karnataka accused Congress of supporting anti-national forces in the country. It also said the Congress could spin the truth however it liked, but people were aware of the reality.

This isn’t the first time the BJP has courted controversy over its tweets. Earlier this month, on 20 January, BJP Delhi’s official handle tweeted two pictures — one of Arvind Kejriwal in a skull cap, captioned ‘Artist’, and one of a bus burning during the anti-citizenship law protests, captioned ‘Art’.

A link to the tweet, which is no longer available, displays the message: “This tweet from @BJP4Delhi has been withheld in India in response to a legal demand”.


Also read: Nearly 18,000 Twitter accounts spread ‘fake news’ for BJP, 147 do it for Congress: Study