Adhir denies controversial 'when a big tree falls' tweet, blames hackers

Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury on Saturday denied that he used the phrase when a big tree falls, ground shakes along a photograph of Rajiv Gandhi on his Twitter handle while paying tribute to the former prime minister on his death anniversary.

Chowdhury, the leader of the Congress party in the Lok Sabha, claimed that his account was hacked as he was delivering a speech at a party office in West Bengal's Murshidabad district when the social media post was made.

The post, which was seen on Chowdhury's Twitter handle on Saturday morning, was removed soon after controversy sparked.

"The tweet against my name in the twitter account has nothing to do with my own observation. A malicious campaign is propagated by those forces inimical to me," he said on the microblogging site.

An FIR has been lodged at the South Avenue Police Station in New Delhi, he said.

Today, an unscrupulous, biased and a content tainted with absolute malafide was posted on my Twitter account when I was busy with the party programme on the dais and did not carry my mobile phone.

"The content posted smacks of malice and I believe that my Twitter account had been hacked by some wrongdoers for the reasons best known to them. I, hereby urge your good-self to take immediate cognizance of this instant complaint and please enquire and seal the IP address and take appropriate action of cybercrime at the earliest in occurrence with law and oblige," he said in the police complaint.

Chowdhury, the West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee president, said it was a cybercrime.

When contacted he told PTI that "it was nothing, but a cybercrime. I was delivering a speech at my party office in Baharampur when the tweet was posted. The media was there. This is nothing but an attempt to malign me and my party.

Rajiv Gandhi had said "earth shakes when a big tree falls", which was seen by critics to be justifying the anti-Sikh violence following the assassination of his mother and the then prime minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards.

He was also assassinated in 1991 by terrorist organisation Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Tamil Nadu where he was on an election campaign.