Fake Twitter Accounts in the Name of Punjab CM Charanjit Channi Emerge

As Charanjit Singh Channi was appointed and sworn in as the new chief minister of Punjab on Monday, 20 September, several Twitter handles in his name emerged on the microblogging platform.

However, we found that most of these accounts have changed their usernames and were impersonating Channi. The official Twitter handle of the new chief minister is '@CHARANJITCHANNI'.

ACCOUNT 1: @Charanjitchinni

The Twitter handle '@Charanjitchinni' posing as the official handle of Punjab CM, joined the social media platform in June 2021, and had 11,800 followers at the time of writing this story.

We went through the replies received on various tweets shared by the Twitter handle: @Charanjitchinni, and came across a reply to a tweet shared by the said handle on 25 August.

However, the reply was to a handle called '@TanuMeenaIYC.'

Taking a cue from here, we searched on Twitter using '@TanuMeenaIYC' and the search result showed the present account in the name of Channi.

We also found that a tweet shared by the imposter handle in which the username was still '@TanuMeenaIYC.'

Also, the imposter account misspells Charanjit Singh Channi's surname as 'chinni'.

ACCOUNT 2: @Chanranjit_Cm

Another account '@Chanranjit_Cm' that had joined the platform in 2017 and had tweeted 18,900 times at the time of writing the article.

We went through the Twitter timeline of '@Chanranjit_Cm' and found a tweet shared on 18 September, that displayed the handle as: '@SankhlaINC'.

Next, on searching on Twitter using the said handle, the result showed the Twitter handle '@Chanranjit_Cm'.

Even this Twitter handle misspelt the name of Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi as 'Chanranjit'.

THEN, WHICH IS THE OFFICIAL HANDLE OF PUNJAB CM?

The official Twitter handle of Charanjit Singh Channi is '@CHARANJITCHANNI' and was created in November 2010.

The official Facebook account of Channi, too, mentions this account as the official handle of the new chief minister.

Official accounts of the Congress party, AICC general secretary Harish Rawat, among other follow the Punjab CM on Twitter. His account has over 11,000 followers.

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