Politicians love Twitter. But leveraging it to confirm, deny, to connect, or to be original, often gets the better of our netas who are still adapting to the critter known as social media. Here are some of the best (and worst) Twitter roasts of 2015.
The Angry Young Indian Who Really Needs Spell Check
He’s known for a colourful vocabulary, yes. But an incensed Delhi Chief Minister took to Twitter using some very ‘direct’ words to cast aspersions on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s personality and mental state. Even as the CBI raided Arvind Kejriwal’s office in connection with a corruption case against his Principal Secy Rajendra Kumar.
After a relentless public haww-haye, Kejriwal pinned his uncouth language on his birthplace in Haryana, only to be trolled some more. The use of such words from a Chief Minister for a Prime Minister was unprecedented. As was the CBI raid on a sitting Chief Minister’s office.
The Un-Diplomatic, Not-so-Cryptic, Army Chief-turned-Politician
VK Singh was monitoring a rescue mission from war-hit Yemen when he joked about it not being as exciting as his visit to the Pakistan Embassy on the country’s National Day. When the “country’s #1 English news channel” decided to get angry about the comparison, the Union MoS, External Affairs stooped to a whole new level of vile while abusing Times Now’s Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami.
Unfortunately, the “presstitutes” monicker has stuck around much to our collective chagrin.
But one couldn’t really blame the first-time Minister for having to live through a “disgust”ing experience in the line of his new “duty”.
The Union Minister of State for External Affairs had been rather grumpy about having to attend Pakistan’s National Day celebrations earlier that week. The ex-Army Chief thought diplomacy to be beneath him when he had to rub shoulders with Pakistani officials and the Hurriyat.
One doesn’t need to work one’s imagination to gauge how trolls reacted when photographs of VK Singh sharing a hearty laugh with Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit emerged.
PIB, The Photoshop Sweatshop
Now the Press Information Bureau isn’t an actual person, but the government’s voice has found its way to this list. After its choppy photoshop job of Prime Minister Modi conducting an aerial survey of rain-ravaged Chennai.
Press Information Bureau ‘clarified’, saying what the media (read: presstitutes) was calling “photoshopped” was actually the “merging” of two photographs. But PIB was exposed as a repeat offender when similarly merged/photoshopped images of former PM Manmohan Singh surveying flood-hit Assam also appeared... :)
Reverse Psychology Lost on Trolls = Epic Fail
Congressman Shakeel Ahmad’s tweet after Chhota Rajan and Anup Chetia’s arrest worked the BJP into a frenzy. “Appalling and shameless” is how the BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra described the tweet which according to him sought to “define terror along religious lines”.
Under attack, Shakeel Ahmad tried to turn the tables on the BJP when he said:
I have said that two anti-social people or criminals, Chhota Rajan and Anup Chetia, have been brought to India and that they are not Muslims by coincidence. If they were Muslims, the Narendra Modi-led Government at the Centre would have accused the Congress Party for playing vote bank politics.
Shakeel Ahmad’s response, cut no ice with the BJP or its army of Twitter followers.
Haters Gonna Hate
“Whatever gave you the notion that I’m secular? I’m a Hindu”, should probably say everything one needs to know about Manipur Governor Tathagatha Roy, perhaps the most partisan Governor in Indian history.
His tweet suggesting Hindus had “acted” instead of “running away from a fight” during the 2002 Gurjarat riots shocked and angered many, but did Mr Roy care?
Guess Not.