On the day of her roadshow in Lucknow, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra officially joined Twitter on Monday, 11 February, with the Congress party making the announcement through its official handle.
Notably, this is Priyanka Gandhi’s first official account on a social media platform. However, The Quint found out that Priyanka’s political plunge has led to the emergence of a number of fake and parody social media accounts.
The fake ‘Priyanka Gandhis’ have become increasingly active since she took up the new role of Congress’ general secretary for East Uttar Pradesh. A few of these accounts have also made controversial statements.
Here’s an example:
CLAIM
On Thursday, 7 February, a Facebook page Modi Government posted a screenshot of a tweet by a handle called @PriyankagaINC, which criticises the expenses made on the Shahi Snan at Kumbh Mela.
The original tweet reads: “भारत मूर्खो का देश है जहाँ सरकार लोगो के पीने के पानी पर नही बल्कि ढोंगी और पाखंडियों के शाही स्नान पे करोडो का खर्च करती है (India is a land of fools where the government spends crores of rupees on Shahi Snan for hypocrites rather than on drinking water).”
TRUE OR FALSE
The claim is falsely attributed to Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, because, as is evident, the Twitter handle mentioned here does not belong to her. Also, upon further scrutiny, The Quint found out that the credentials of the Twitter handle used here have been recently changed.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
At the time of writing this article, the Facebook post on Modi Government’s page had garnered 273 shares.
However, the more revealing fact was that the handle name, profile name and the display picture of the Twitter account, from where the screenshot is sourced, have been changed.
Upon running a search on Twitter by the handle name @PriyankagaINC (see screenshot), one is directed to a broken link that says, “Sorry, the page doesn’t exist.”
However, if one hovers the cursor on the replies to the tweets put up by @PriyankagaINC, it suggests another handle by the name @Priyanka_G_VINC.
The Quint also located the tweet, whose screenshot has gone viral, on this handle’s feed.
Thus, it can be established that the Twitter account in question has changed its identity since this tweet was first put up.
Not The Only ‘Priyanka Gandhi’ on Twitter
The Twitter account mentioned here is of the many ‘Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’ on the micro-blogging site. A simple search on Twitter by the newly-appointed Congress general secretary's name would throw up a long list bearing testimony to this.
Quite a few among these are declared fan pages. Consider this:
Others are parody accounts. Here is a sample:
Other such accounts do not give any disclaimer and hence can be mistaken as genuine.
Consider this handle @_PriyankaG, which has more than 23,000 followers.
Another handle @OfficialWithPG has, in its bio, claimed to be the ‘official account of Priyanka Gandhi’ and is followed by senior journalists such as Paranjoy Guhathakurta, Sreenivasan Jain and Rajdeep Sardesai.
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