The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday slammed the Congress Party after a video of Divya Spandana, who is Congress’ digital communications in-charge, surfaced online urging people to create ‘fake accounts’ to populate anti-BJP narrative on social media.
In-charge of BJP’s national Information & Technology, Amit Malviya shared the video on Twitter, while saying “After a failed attempt to deploy BOTS in order to shore up Rahul Gandhi’s popularity on social media, Divya Spandana, in-charge of Congress’s digital communication, caught on camera urging workers to create multiple ‘fake accounts’ to spread misinformation about Modi govt”.
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Earlier, Spandana was in news for her ‘POT’ remark on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
While talking about agrarian crisis at a rally in Bengaluru’s Palace Grounds, PM Modi had used an acronym; TOP — for tomato, onion and potato — Spandana had retweeted a post, saying “Is this what happens when you are on POT”.
According to media reports, BJP had lashed out at Spandana, while accusing her of invoking the reference of ‘hallucinogenic plant’ in her remarks regarding PM Modi.
The fresh video has raked up the issue to utilisation of automated bots and fake accounts to increase popularity on social media. Last year, Rahul Gandhi was accused by the BJP for using automated bots from countries like; Russia, Indonesia and Kazakhstan to increase his popularity on Twitter.
Also read: Are bots behind Rahul Gandhi’s popularity surge on Twitter?
Last year, Rahul Gandhi also received flak from Assam’s education minister Himanta Biswa Sarma after Gandhi-scion uploaded a video of his dog ‘Pidi’ with the comment that the four-legged was responsible for his tweets.
However, Rahul Gandhi’s jibe boomeranged after Himanta Biswa Sarma reminded Rahul Gandhi how he had once given prominence to feeding his dog when he (Himanta) wanted to discuss Assam’s important issues with him.