Just as twitterati were bracing themselves for the late night ’emo hour’ on Twitter, something happened which gave fodder to ‘Jokes Twitter’ till the weekend.
West Bengal Chief Minister, after detaining BJP spokesperson Tajinder Bagga at the Kolkata Airport last week, has now blocked him on Twitter. Bagga had gone to Kolkata to take part in the Durga Pujo and Durga idol immersion where he was detained by West Bengal Police and sent back to Delhi without letting him enter the city. While blocking by someone holding a public office is technically not against free speech, it is seen as unfair.
However, Mamata Banerjee blocking Bagga on Twitter caused hilarity and amusement among the Twitter users.
After Blocking me at Airport, now @MamataOfficial blocked me here. Letter achi nahi lgi kya ? pic.twitter.com/njVGc2GEiL
— Tajinder Bagga (@TajinderBagga) October 2, 2017
Other users who were also randomly blocked by Banerjee were quite baffled.
Susri- why me? pic.twitter.com/DKs92y5Kru
— Karma Mojo (@ElGuruGyani) October 2, 2017
Sir mai to pehle se block hoo ??????? pic.twitter.com/F0150Ebuot
— Anuj Awasthi (@realanujawasthi) October 2, 2017
Some even brought in Delhi Chief Minister, Arvind Kejriwal, who has used Twitter as a platform to spread voracious lies and fake news.
You are not alone. Arvind Kejriwal blocked me as well ???
— Akshay Mallya (@bamallya) October 2, 2017
Kejriwal and Mamata Banerjee had joined hands to attack Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the demonetization decision last year.
Banerjee blocked Bagga on Twitter soon after he wrote her a letter about his detainment at Kolkata Airport.
My letter to Mamata Didi @MamataOfficial pic.twitter.com/KBrXj2ml4Q
— Tajinder Bagga (@TajinderBagga) October 2, 2017
Addressing her with “Aadaab”, a gesture usually used by Muslims to greet one another, Bagga wrote how Banerjee’s anti-Hindu stand will eventually lead to her ‘political immersion’ in Bengal.
People took digs at Banerjee’s intolerance towards voice of dissent.
Mamata doesn’t tolerate dissent in person or by the social media. Such intolerance borders on fascism and must be challenged. https://t.co/szDC80i4yq
— Dr David Frawley (@davidfrawleyved) October 3, 2017
ममता जी, 2 tweet n 1 letter नही झेल पा रही और उनके followers intolerance की बात करते है। Intolerance के नाम पे हमारे PM को को 24hrs कोसते है https://t.co/FcBtew7sdO
— Vaibhav Srivastava (@ivaibhavsri) October 3, 2017
If there is one thing the Mamata Banerjee government excels at, it is crawling the social media and keeping a vigilant eye for all things that could possibly show her government in bad light, and then instead of weeding out the cause, just ban it or as we saw last night, block it.
