Toolkit row: Congress seeks 'manipulated media' tag on Twitter posts by 11 BJP ministers

In the letter to Twitter, Surjewala has demanded action against Union ministers Piyush Goyal, Smriti Irani, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Giriraj Singh, among others

Amid a raging debate over the ‘toolkit’ controversy, Congress on Tuesday knocked on the doors of Twitter, seeking a ‘manipulated media’ tag on the posts by 11 Union ministers, including Smriti Irani, Piyush Goyal and Prahlad Joshi.

In a letter to Twitter's Lead for Legal, Policy and Trust and Safety, Vijaya Gadde and its Deputy General Counsel and Vice President (Legal) Jim Baker, Congress general secretary Randeep Surjewala sought stern action against 11 Union ministers for allegedly spreading false and forged documents.

Earlier, Twitter had labelled posts by BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra and senior leaders C T Ravi as ‘manipulated media’. The tweets by the BJP leaders included a document, described as “Congress toolkit’ to defame the Modi government.

Read | Toolkit row: Delhi Police sends notice to two Congress leaders

In the letter to Twitter, Surjewala has demanded similar action against Union ministers Piyush Goyal, Smriti Irani, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Giriraj Singh, Prahlad Joshi, Dharmendra Pradhan, Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, Thawarchand Gehlot, Harsh Vardhan, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Gajendra Singh Shekhawat.

Surjewala claimed that the “forged, fabricated material” and the claims made under the hashtag ‘CongressToolkitExposed’ by the ministers were identical to the material that has already been tagged as ‘manipulative media’ by Twitter.

“It is reasonable to expect that the aforementioned individuals will be dealt with the same yardstick as applied in other cases where the Twitter platform is misused to broadcast forged and fabricated material...,” he said.

Surjewala alleged that the "forged toolkit" document was created by certain BJP leaders to gain undue and wrongful political advantage by spreading "potentially dangerous, false and fabricated" material through their Twitter handles against the Congress and its leaders.

In a separate statement, Surjewala slammed the police action against Twitter claiming that it was a “reverse investigation” of “innocent” by the “guilty”.

“Crime is committed by BJP leaders. Fake toolkit is put up by BJP leaders. Raid should be on BJP office, but Twitter India is raided,” Surjewala said.