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	<img align="" alt="Ratan Tata" class="imgCont" height="464" src="http://bsmedia.business-standard.com/_media/bs/img/article/2016-03/15/full/1458058375-8253.jpg" style="border: 1px solid #DDD; margin-right: 10px; padding: 1px; float: left; z-index: 0;" title="Ratan Tata" width="620" />
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				Ratan Tata does not tweet frequently. His late-evening demonetisation tweet, the first since dismissal of Cyrus Mistry (pictured), created flutters on the social platform with thousands of likes and retweets.&nbsp;</div>
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				&ldquo;Demonetisation of old currency notes by the Modi govt is a bold act that will wipe out black money and corruption. It deserves our support,&rdquo; said the interim chairman of Tata Sons.&nbsp;</div>
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				As the ruling party&rsquo;s social media army, hungry for any support for the much-criticised move, latched on to it making it viral, a &lsquo;Hinduwarrior&rsquo; handle tried to link it to Tata &lsquo;demonetising&rsquo; his own company&rsquo;s chairman. One Yogesh Shahade tweeted, &ldquo;Well said and all the luck and wishes to you and your team to come out of the Tata mess.&rdquo;</div>
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				<img align="left" alt="Mystery handles, hashtags spice up Tata-Mistry battle" class="imgCont" height="464" src="http://bsmedia.business-standard.com/_media/bs/img/article/2016-11/25/full/1480016104-2969.jpg" style="border: 1px solid #DDD; margin-right: 10px; padding: 1px; float: left; z-index: 0;" title="Mystery handles, hashtags spice up Tata-Mistry battle" width="620" /></div>
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			Tata&rsquo;s last two tweets which came in late September were congratulating armed forces for surgical strikes on terrorist launchpads across the Line of Control and supporting the government&rsquo;s stand on boycotting the Saarc (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) meet.&nbsp;</div>
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			While the significance of being on the right side of the government, which controls institutions and banks that have significant exposure to the group, was not lost on anyone, Tata&rsquo;s latest tweet comes on the backdrop of a colourful battle that has been going on in social media, especially on Twitter, for a while now.</div>
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			Parody handles have gone berserk with tweets on the daily developments. For example, Rotten Tata, which has the descriptor &ldquo;back in the saddle, no more emeritus&rdquo; and a display picture of a yellow Nano has been retweeting pro-Tata tweets. It has some 30 followers and has clocked some 54 tweets so far.&nbsp;</div>
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			Rival SeriousMistry has been a bit more active with 514 tweets, pre-dominantly pro-Mistry. It has 82 followers. On November 18, Serious Mistry told its followers to &ldquo;follow the money from @TataCompanies to @Tatatrusts and beyond.&rdquo;&nbsp;</div>
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			Both camps and their public relations arms have been active on Twitter, floating hashtags and trying to trend these. The Mistry camp has been vocal with hashtags such as #Cyrus4governance and #CyrusMistry4governance.</div>
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			Tatas&rsquo; famed public relations machinery is not far behind. #Support4Tata is a key hashtags. #Tata4India was trending after Tata&rsquo;s Tuesday tweet, but it was driven more by the saffron brigade.&nbsp;</div>
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			After Nusli Wadia went public with his defamation notices, #WadiaTruthsTataLies started gaining prominence. Standup4truth and &nbsp;Standup4tatas were some of the other hashtags.</div>
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			Some self-styled curators and aggregators have also cropped up. The handle @TataMistrysaga described itself as &ldquo;curating and questioning crossfires of the biggest war corporate India will see in years to come...&rdquo; Its given location was &lsquo;Tatas Mystery land&rdquo;.</div>
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			Business Standard managed to do a private chat with the person behind this handle. This person, who refused to reveal his real identity, claimed he worked for neither side and that he was travelling thousands of miles away from India. &ldquo;I am only online... on this handle,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Somehow, I got an intuition that this is going to last long and will make headlines for another two-three months. Never expected Cyrus to get an upper hand as far as external perception is concerned.&rdquo;&nbsp;</div>
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			The self-styled curator claimed to have inside sources, too, on both camps and some bankers are giving him information, but added: &ldquo;Both (sides) have lame social media armies.&rdquo; The person said he was friends with many involved in the boardroom battle and those covering it, and said he would often get links and stories forwarded.</div>
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			He feels Mistry has more mileage on social media. &ldquo;Yes, Cyrus has more sympathy. Coz that&rsquo;s what reflects when I aggregate the news stories. At least most media is factoring Cyrus &lsquo;messaging&rsquo;&rdquo;.&nbsp;</div>
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			When asked how even this handle&rsquo;s tweets have been slanting towards Mistry, the curator said: &ldquo;Yes, I have my sympathies with Cyrus.&rdquo; But, quickly added that the handle had been critical on Mistry&rsquo;s strategies as well. &nbsp;Among genuine twitter accounts, most official handles of Tata group have behaved as if nothing has happened. Dismissed Group Executive Council member Nirmalya Kumar has been active tweeting his own blogs and interviews and the odd Mistry salvo.</div>
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			Tata campers have been at best been cryptic like Mukund Rajan who tweeted about Voltaire&rsquo;s quote. #Voltaire&rsquo;s b&#39;day&ndash;just learnt he didn&rsquo;t actually say &ldquo;I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it&rdquo;.<br />
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			Tata campers have been at best been cryptic like Mukund Rajan who tweeted about Voltaire&rsquo;s quote. #Voltaire&rsquo;s b&#39;day&ndash;just learnt he didn&rsquo;t actually say &ldquo;I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it&rdquo;.</div>
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Parody handles have gone berserk with tweets on the daily developments

Mystery handles, hashtags spice up Tata-Mistry battle

Parody handles have gone berserk with tweets on the daily developments

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