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The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday accused the outgoing Prime Minister's Office (PMO) team of "petty mindedness", when the latter didn't hand over the official Twitter account, @PMOIndia, to the new team.
The account managed by Manmohan Singh's team had 4,000 tweets and 1.4 million followers. The old team took the entire account to a new Twitter handle @PMOIndiaArchive, leaving the incoming prime minister's team to start @PMOIndia handle afresh. A legend on @PMOArchive noted the change. It stated: "Archival material under the RTI Act for @PMOIndia till 20/5/2014. @PMOIndia will be available shortly."
The new @PMOIndia didn't have Prime Minister-designate Narendra Modi's photograph. By Tuesday evening, it had 8,000 followers. The BJP alleged the outgoing team left the @PMOIndia unattended. "This allowed people to hack into it and post messages until the BJP informed Twitter India administrators to put a stop to this," Shrikant Sharma, BJP media cell chief, said.
"Continuity in governance and all government assets is the hallmark of the Indian Constitution. The Twitter account @PMOIndia is a national digital asset. It is disgraceful, unethical and illegal in the way the outgoing team handling the @PMOIndia Twitter account has conducted the transition of this national digital asset," BJP spokesperson Meenakshi Lekhi said.
She said BJP hoped "better sense prevails and the tweets of outgoing @PMOIndia are archived according to legal procedures and a smooth transition takes place with this national digital asset, the Twitter handle of @PMO India, which must become available to the incoming government. @PMO is not a personal asset, it is a national asset."
A member of the outgoing PMO, however, disputed that @PMOIndia was left unattended or that correct procedure wasn't followed. "According to the Right to Information Act, all communication should remain in public domain for perpetuity," Pankaj Pachauri, communications advisor to Manmohan Singh, said.
Pachauri said the new team hadn't understood the provisions of the Right to Information Act. "The official account has been surrendered to Twitter and all other communication has been archived under the provisions of the RTI Act," he said, adding the new team was trying to derive political mileage by raking up an unnecessary controversy. "We have vacated @PMOIndia handle. This gives the next administration the flexibility of choosing the same name or start with a new handle," Pachauri said.
