As India continues to witness an unprecedented rise in COVID-19 cases, the Centre and state governments have come under strong criticism from all quarters. Amid this, a Twitter handle impersonating Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) stalwart Lal Krishna Advani has cropped up on social media. The account regularly tweets criticising Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP's handling of the COVID crisis.
We analysed the social media activity of the said account and found several red flags including spelling errors and frequently changing user ids to ascertain that it is not the real account of the BJP leader. Further, the account has now purged its timeline, and changed the handle (slightly).
SCREENSHOTS OF TWEETS CRITICISING MODI, SHAH & RSS GO VIRAL
Screenshots of two tweets by the aforementioned account criticising PM Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) are massively viral on Facebook and Twitter.
An archived version of the post can be accessed here.
(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)
One of the two tweets, originally in Hindi, reads, “I never opposed the Modi-Shah duo thinking that they are the kids I raised, who will help India become a global superpower. But, today they have made it difficult for people to breathe in India. Had I known this, I would have never handed over India to these traders.”
Archived versions of the viral claim can be accessed here, here, and here.
TWEETS BY IMPOSTER ACCOUNT, NOT ADVANI
1. We noticed that Advani was misspelt as ‘Adwani’ in the handle of the Twitter account.
2. Until 28 April, the account operated under ‘@LK_Adwani’ but had changed its handle to ‘@LK_Adawani’ at the time this story was written.
Further, the aforementioned tweets have been deleted by the user after they went viral. You can view an archived link of the original tweet here.
3. When we searched for ‘@LK_Adwani’ on Twitter we came across the new profile, which had not yet changed the handle, but changed the username from ‘Lal Krishna Adwani’ to ‘Lal Krishana Adwani’.
The user now mentions ‘P/A’ in the bio, which earlier read ‘Former Home Minister of India’.
A primary search on Twitter also revealed that LK Advani does not have an official Twitter account. Further, there were no credible news reports around Advani criticising Modi government's handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
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