The Congress Minority Department took to Twitter on Tuesday to express its elation at being followed back by none other than its party senior leader Rahul Gandhi. The tweet in Hindi roughly translates to: “It is a matter of pride for the entire Minority Department that today our Twitter handle got a follow back from @RahulGandhi. Now the department will be directly under the supervision of Rahul Gandhi ji and this will make the office-bearers more responsible”.
पूरे माइनॉरिटी डिपार्टमेंट के लिये ये फ़ख़्र की बात है कि आज हमारे ट्विटर हैंडल को @RahulGandhi जी का फॉलो बैक मिला है ।
— Congress, Minority Department (@INCMinority) June 8, 2021
अब डिपार्टमेंट सीधे राहुल गॉंधी जी की निगरानी में रहेगा और पदाधिकारियों को अधिक ज़िम्मेदार बनायेगा ।
हम अपने नेता का शुक्रिया अदा करते हैं pic.twitter.com/jsFHZPyHkx
The Congress Minority Department was ecstatic when the Gandhi scion chose to follow their Twitter account. They posted a screenshot of Rahul Gandhi responding to them on Twitter, along with a note praising the former party president for his kindness.
No sooner did Rahul Gandhi decide to follow back the party’s minority department, than his sister and the general secretary of the All India Congress Committee in charge of Uttar Pradesh Priyanka Gandhi also followed suit.
माइनॉरिटी डिपार्टमेंट के तमाम साथियों के लिये ये फ़ख़्र की बात है कि आदरणीया प्रियंका दीदी ने भी हमारे ट्विटर हैंडल को फॉलो बैक दिया है ।
— Congress, Minority Department (@INCMinority) June 8, 2021
अब आप साथियों की ज़िम्मेदारी और बढ़ जाती है
शुक्रिया @priyankagandhi जी pic.twitter.com/QaVSpKZk2Z
Senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi unfollowed about 63 people on Twitter
This decision to follow back his own party’s Minority Department’s Twitter handle comes a week after Rahul Gandhi decided to unfollow 63 accounts on Twitter.
Of these, at least two of them have been known for peddling Congress propaganda.
Pratik Sinha, co-founder of the propaganda website Alt News, was one of the accounts Gandhi unfollowed. The same portal recently came up with an unconvincing defense to give the Congress party a clean chit and extricate it from the toolkit debacle.
Though it’s unclear what went wrong for the Gandhi scion to discontinue following not only the co-founder of the portal that invariably ends up acting as an outpost of the Congress party, loyally peddling its agenda but also his other loyalists like senior journalists Rajdeep Sardesai and Barkha Dutt, his close aide Nikhil Alva, other staff members, as well as a slew of reporters covering the Congress, to name a few.
Sanjukta Basu explains Rahul Gandhi’s unfollow strategy on Twitter
While many Congress leaders had come up with an explanation that Gandhi’s Twitter account is being purged, resulting in many accounts being unfollowed, Congress mouthpiece National Herald Consulting Editor Sanjukta Basu came up with a timeless classic.
Despite being unfollowed by Rahul Gandhi herself, the towering intellectual of the Congress-left ecosystem didn’t see it as some kind of insult meted out to her. She instead went on to explain how this move was a part of a well planned strategy.
Meanwhile, Aaj Tak journalist Panini Anand explained how it does not matter who all Rahul Gandhi unfollows on Twitter, it is important he follows his great grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru, the constitution of India and the ‘Idea of India’, in that order.