Fake Twitter Account of MP Navneet Rana Crops up Amid Hanuman Chalisa Row

The previous username of the account was 'Pratima_Paandey' and it was created in February 2021.

The Twitter account was created in February 2021 and had the username 'Pratima Paandey'.

(Source: Altered by The Quint)

As Lok Sabha MP Navneet Rana and her husband MLA Ravi Rana made headlines for saying that they would chant the Hanuman Chalisa outside Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray's residence in Mumbai if he didn't do it on Hanuman Jayanti, a Twitter account with the username '@kaur_navneet__' shared posts related to the recent developments.

The account, which was created in February 2021, has been actively sharing posts related to the couple, and posts from pro-Hindutva accounts.

What Kind of Posts Has the Account Previously Shared?

On going through the account's Twitter timeline, we found that the user has made multiple posts about the ongoing controversy. Some of the posts can be viewed here and here.

An archived version of the post can be seen here.

One tweet shared on 25 February called on Hindus to boycott brands endorsed by the Khans of Bollywood and retweeted communally coloured tweets by other accounts.

The account has shared tweets calling for a boycott of brands endorsed by Khans.

The account also shared a tweet targeting the former Congress government in Punjab and another one criticising Delhi's Aam Aadmi Party government.

(Note: Swipe right to view both tweets.)

The account has shared posts targeting non-BJP parties.

The account has shared posts targeting non-BJP parties.

It also shared multiple tweets in support of the central government.

Multiple tweets shared by this account praise PM Modi.

Tweets Published Two Hours Apart Show Discrepancy in Username

While combing through the account, we found two tweets published on 20 April that showed different usernames for the same account.

One tweet that was published at 4.17 pm reflected the username as 'kaur_navneet__' as seen below.

This tweet carried the account's current username.

A tweet shared on the same account at 2.20 pm show a different Twitter handle, which reads 'Pratima_Paandey'.

Two consecutive tweets show different usernames.

We then checked the unique user ID of '@kaur_navneet__' which was 1362332802646089731.

Using WayBack Machine, we looked for the archives of 'Pratima_Paandey' and found 270 records of tweets shared by the account.

On checking the unique Twitter ID associated with archives of this account, we saw that it matched the one associated with the account impersonating Rana.

The unique numeric code assigned to a user matches for both handles.

Though clicking on the username showed a message noting that the account did not exist, a search for tweets from Pratima Paandey's account showed us tweets from the imposter account.

A search for Pratima Paandey's tweets showed us Rana's imposter account.

We also found an older tweet from 2021, which refers to itself as a male in Hindi.

The account refers to itself as male.

With this, we can conclude that the Twitter account operating under the username 'kaur_navneet__' does not belong to Lok Sabha MP Navneet Rana, but is an imposter account under the leader's name.

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