Tit-for-tat over start-up event

With Assembly elections due next year in Karnataka, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the ruling Congress seem to be engaged in a tit-for-tat game on social media. This time it is over the start-up event, Elevate, for which the state government has committed ~35 crore to fund more than 100 start-ups. On Twitter, Rishi Bagree, a BJP supporter who claims to have Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party President Amit Shah as his “followers” on the microblogging site, accused state Information Technology Minister Priyank Kharge of using government money to finance his “ghost companies” in the garb of start-up funding. In return, Kharge called his accuser a certified troll. “Please prove your allegations or please apologise to all the entrepreneurs who have worked hard to be here,” posted Kharge.