Nearly 10,000 accounts on X (previously Twitter) were blocked by the Prime Minister’s Office (abbreviated as PMO) of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) for “making fun” of the late Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
After Narendra Modi was elected as India’s Prime Minister in May 2014, the issue was made public. By then, PMO had received 4000 requests to unblock these accounts.
The report by DNA mentions that the X (formerly Twitter) handles were reportedly blocked by a team led by Pankaj Pachauri, Manmohan Singh’s media advisor. A total of 10,000 odd X handles were previously censored by a team led by Pankaj Pachauri, Manmohan Singh’s media advisor. Some of these were finally unblocked by the PMO under the Narendra Modi government.
After the incident, a BJP member informed DNA in 2014, “Nearly 2,000 followers have already been unblocked. By the end of this week, we will be able to unblock all the blocked followers. This number is expected to be around 8,000-10,000.”
The PMO under the Narendra Modi administration eventually unblocked a total of 10,000 or more X handles that had been blocked by Manmohan Singh’s office. Under Manmohan Singh’s leadership, the PMO forced X (previously Twitter) to block twelve of Singh’s parodies in 2012.
Facebook’s 2013 transparency report also showed that, under Manmohan Singh, India had submitted the highest restriction requests, totaling over 4765. The Congress government, led by the late Dr Manmohan Singh, has always put his image as a person who tolerates ‘freedom of expression’, but his action of blocking accounts on social media tells a different story.
The leaders of the Congress party should know their history of suppression of free voices, not only in the form of blocking people’s social media accounts but also how the UPA government led by Congress and the Gandhi family has put the curtain behind their foreign engagements.
After the sudden demise of Manmohan Singh on 26th December at the age of 92, Congress tried to portray him as a Champion of freedom of expression by comparing him to the incumbent PM Narendra Modi by saying Manmohan Singh used to present himself in front of the media in order to keep transparency. But they have forgotten their own actions; they do not remember their censorship. This is pure hypocrisy from the Congress side.