'Reason For Rahul Gandhi Ban': Congress Leader On Twitter Ex-CEO's Claim

Reacting to former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey's claim that there was 'pressure' from India to block accounts covering the farmers' protests, Congress leader KC Venugopal said today that the government wants to suppress the opposition's voice and that is why they banned Rahul Gandhi's Twitter account.

In an interview with the YouTube channel 'Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar' on Monday, Mr Dorsey, who stepped down from Twitter's board last year, alleged that the Indian government had put pressure on Twitter and said that it will shut down the company in India and raid the houses of its employees.

"The statement of the Twitter CEO is totally alarming and shocking for all of us. The entire government machinery is pressuring the Twitter CEO to suppress and shut the opposition's voice. That is why they banned Rahul Gandhi's Twitter account," Mr Venugopal said.

"Where is the freedom of expression, freedom of media? They do this to suppress failure. We will raise the issue not only in Parliament, but we will also raise the issue throughout the country," he said.

Meanwhile, Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee president Nana Patole also supported Mr Dorsey's claim that there was 'pressure' from India to block accounts covering the farmers' protests and said that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) must have made such attempts.

"What the (former) Twitter CEO said is totally correct. When BJP came into power, media was not given the power to show the truth. Earlier also, the BBC launched a short film on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the central agency raided them. Yes, the government must have warned Twitter saying that if they report against us, we will raid departments of Twitter in India".

"We know that the BJP uses central agencies. Twitter is not lying but this government is telling lies and they must have used the central agencies against them (Twitter, BBC)," he added. 

In the interview, Mr Dorsey said, "India is one of the countries which had many requests around farmers' protests, around particular journalists who were critical of the government and it manifested in ways such as we will shut Twitter down in India."

"India is a big marketplace for us. We would raid the homes of your employees, which they did and we will shut down your offices if you don't follow suit and this is India, a democratic country," Mr Dorsey added. 

In November 2021, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the repeal of the three Central farm laws. In his address to the nation, PM Modi had said, "Today I want to tell everyone that we have decided to repeal all three farm laws." 

Farmers had staged a protest in large numbers against the government's three farm laws since the Centre passed the laws in 2020.