This story first appeared in Times of India Blog
In a post-Truth world, easily lies the head that wears a frown. The khela is still hobey-ing in West Bengal, and now it looks like BJP has scored another own goal. This time in a national fix-ture. Twitter threw a spanner into the ‘Congress toolkit’ which had been so indignantly ‘exposed’ by Sambit Patra et al. Twitter’s tag of ‘manipulated media’ has turned the tables on the un-shut-up-able BJP spokesperson and his fellow tweeters, putting them under a cloud for allegedly having themselves created that toolkit. If verified, then the ruling party has inadvertently ended up declaring the Dead Old Party as its most threatening rival.
The blaring question is ‘Whydunnit?’ What made the mighty BJP attribute such influence to a party so manifestly disabled, discredited and disemboweled-by-dissent? More important, does such unwitting ‘endorsement’ mean that Shri BJP-ji fears it is still far from achieving its aim of a Congress-mukt India? Strange. We thought successive polls had already managed that.
If Twitter’s charges hold, then the creators of such jiggery-fakery will have to eat their words. The most indigestion would be suffered by the clinically verbose Shri Patra. Clearly Sam-bit off more than he could chew. Which might remind us of the chutneyed and steamed festive Parsi dish, now tweaked to ‘Fishy Patra’.
Of course, the state can unleash its power to protect itself. So, the Delhi police did its usual Rambo act, barging into the Delhi offices of Twitter to ‘serve notice’ in connection with its probe into the toolkit case. This led to Twitter’s HQ getting into the act. The matter has escalated further since the platform dared tag the tweets of BJP functionaries as ‘manipulated media’, the matter reportedly could go all the way up to the US government, and create a diplomatic frisson.
So, will POTUS have to divide his attention between sending us oxygen and looking into the charge of ‘free speech’ gasping for breath in India? Last heard, the SpO2 levels of this threatened species had sunk so low, that it is a wonder it is alive. That’s a real Variant of Concern.
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