Why BJP's outrage over PMOIndia handle is just silly

You know the Indian government has truly hit the digital age, when the BJP is busy fighting it out with the previous government over the PMO Twitter handle before the dust of the election has settled. So why is the BJP huffing and puffing over a social media account? First a quick recap: The official Twitter account for the Prime Minister of India’s Office @PMOIndia has been renamed with a new account slated to take its place soon. The account has been renamed @PMOIndiaArchive, complying with the RTI Act, and has all the tweets posted by the office till 20 May. Essentially, the new @PMOIndia handle has been reserved as a placeholder till PM-elect Narendra Modi takes office. The account is currently bare; it has no bio, and is not following anyone either. It has not put up a cover photo in the new Twitter web profile either. Lack of tweets or profile pic hasn’t stopped the @PMOIndia account from getting 12.2 thousand followers as of writing this morning. To put things in context, the older account had over 1.24 million followers. [caption id=“attachment_1535177” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Screengrab from Twitter[/caption] And this is what seems to be irking the BJP the most: the resetting of the Twitter account, the loss of followers and the lack of a seamless transition. Meenakshi Lekhi, BJP’s newly elected MP from New Delhi, and party spokesperson said, “The Twitter account @PMOIndia is a national digital asset. It is disgraceful, unethical and illegal the way the outgoing team has handled this account.” Lekhi is clearly angry and perhaps the only person in India who think that the PMO’s rather bland account was a digital asset to the nation. Jammu & Kashmir’s chief minister Omar Abdullah also weighed in on this fight on Twitter (where else is it appropriate to comment on a Twitter war) and tweeted, “How churlish!!! Just hand over the twitter account. It’s not like Dr Manmohan Singh was actually using it himself or will use it much now.” Earth to Omar Abdullah: Umm,  Manmohan Singh wasn’t tweeting anything, from that handle or elsewhere. More importantly, @PMOIndia was pretty easily the dullest account of any government in the world. Other than the usual tit-bits about what the Prime Minister said where, what policy was being implemented, PMOIndia had about as much personality as, well, the PM himself.  In essence, it was All India Radio-meets-DD but on Twitter; a new use of technology to achieve old goals of government-controlled media, ie put the audience entirely to sleep. No wonder that so many fake PMO accounts have cropped up and managed to garner more followers that the PMO’s account.  (Not that they lasted long since the government made sure  that Twitter shut them down pretty soon. ) This Twitter fight is all the more puzzling – and silly – given that Narendra Modi already has a Twitter account with close to 4.24 million followers. And it’s safe to assume that these 4.24 million followers are aware that he is now the Prime Minister of India. The economy may or may not grow, but PMOIndia under Modi is likely to gain more followers. Actually, lots and lots and lots and lots of followers. So why whine about old account and its followers? The BJP should instead look forward to Modi-fying the @PMOIndia handle, make it all shinier and better much as they plan to do for the rest of India. While the new PMOIndia handle is likely to continue to be handled by a media advisor, Modi can surely find ways to make it more interactive and interesting, much like his personal Twitter account.  After all, with a digital-savvy PM, we can look forward to many Modi engineered delights like a lot more selfies – may be with Obama or Putin. The bottomline is that the UPA government simply followed the rules and archived the tweets under RTI. They did so by renaming the account, and leaving a new @PMOIndia handle for Modi. They didn’t steal the handle or misappropriate it or render it unusable. The @PMOIndia handle fight is an unnecessary drama, one that is best avoided after a bitter election. After a Narendra Modi speech filled with sweetness and light (and tears), this petty fight strikes precisely the wrong note.