The senior Congres leader claimed Maharashtra is being misled over the 'fake' Twitter handle in the name of the Karnataka chief minister.
Published Dec 19, 2022 | 1:45 PM ⚊ Updated Dec 19, 2022 | 1:45 PM
Congress leader Ashok Chavan. (AshokChavanINC/Twitter)
Senior Congres leader Ashok Chavan claimed on Monday, 19 December, that Maharashtra is being misled over the issue of a ‘fake’ Twitter handle in the name of the Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai amid the boundary dispute between the two states.
Talking to reporters in the Vidhan Bhavan complex in Nagpur, Chavan asked why the Maharashtra government was silent in the matter and said it seemed the state government was helping Karnataka to brush aside the controversy over the issue of the ‘fake’ Twitter account from which “provocative comments” were made.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde last week said tweets in the name of his Karnataka counterpart claiming some areas of Maharashtra were not actually posted by Bommai.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who last week met the chief ministers of Maharashtra and Karnataka to defuse the border tensions between the two states, had said fake tweets in the name of top leaders also escalated the issue.
The dispute centres on Maharashtra’s claims on Belagavi and the surrounding region in northern Karnataka which has a sizable Marathi-speaking population.
Chavan on Monday said the provocative language used in the tweets was objectionable.
”It was clarified that the Twitter handle was fake. But the handle was active since January 2015 and has been verified by Twitter. Till now, official decisions by the Karnataka government are posted on that handle,” the former Maharashtra chief minister said.
If the Twitter handle was fake, why the tweets related to Maharashtra have not been deleted? How is the Twitter account still active? he asked.
ಕರ್ನಾಟಕದ ಗಡಿ ಜಿಲ್ಲೆಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಒಂದಿಂಚೂ ಜಾಗವನ್ನು ಬಿಟ್ಟು ಕೊಡುವ ಪ್ರಶ್ನೆಯೇ ಇಲ್ಲ. ಮಹಾರಾಷ್ಟ್ರದಲ್ಲಿರುವ ಕನ್ನಡ ಭಾಷಿಕ ಪ್ರದೇಶಗಳಾದ ಸೊಲ್ಲಾಪುರ, ಅಕ್ಕಲಕೋಟೆ ಕರ್ನಾಟಕಕ್ಕೆ ಸೇರಬೇಕೆನ್ನುವುದು ನಮ್ಮ ಆಗ್ರಹವಿದೆ.
2/3— Basavaraj S Bommai (Modi Ka Parivar) (@BSBommai) November 23, 2022
“The Maharashtra government is being misled over the fake Twitter handle issue,” he alleged.
Chavan said Maharashtra’s stand was always that of understanding. The Karnataka chief minister makes “provocative remarks” and it is not countered, he claimed.
”It looks like the Maharashtra government is helping Karnataka to brush aside the controversy over the fake Twitter handle. Why is the Maharashtra government going soft on this?” he asked.
(Disclaimer: Only the headline, subheads, and intro of this report along with the photos may have been reworked by South First. The rest of the content is from a syndicated feed)
