Toolkit row: Congress asks Twitter to permanently suspend accounts of Nadda, Patra, Smriti, Santosh

Congress on Thursday wrote to Twitter urging it to permanently suspend accounts of four senior BJP leaders—J P Nadda, B L Santosh, Smriti Irani and Sambit Patra—accusing them of "knowingly spreading misinformation" on toolkit issue to hide their "failures".

The letter, written by AICC Research Department Chairman Prof Rajeev Gowda and Chairman Social Media Department Rohan Gupta, also accused the four BJP leaders of attempting to create unrest in the society.

They alleged that the senior leaders of the BJP were grossly misusing the platform, which has led to "false information" and the potential to cause "social unrest" amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Congress leaders claimed that the BJP leaders forged the letterhead in a "pre-planned conspiracy" and printed certain "mischievous, false and fabricated content", which were circulated. They said an FIR has been filed.

Also read: Toolkit issue: NSUI files FIR against BJP leaders Raman Singh, Sambit Patra

The Congress and the BJP were locked in a verbal duel after the latter accused its opponent of orchestrating a campaign to malign the Narendra Modi government over Covid-19 handling and tweeted a 'toolkit' to the party. However, Congress sources said that the toolkit barring one on Central Vista was not its work.

"You will appreciate that the BJP leaders in order to divert attention from burning issue of the 'failure of the Modi government to provide aid in the current pandemic' deliberately ran this hate campaign, for which they manufactured and a forged a 'toolkit', which was wrongly attributed to the Congress," the letter said.

Also read: Congress instructed to call new Covid strain Modi strain, BJP alleges

The two leaders also said the BJP made "wild allegations" such as international and Indian journalists were criticising Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the instance of Congress.

"As Twitter's own policy and rules seek to discourage deceptive/synthetic/manipulated media that are likely to cause harm, we humbly request you to immediately remove the tweets... Also, you are requested to carry out a detailed probe" into the issue, they said.

They also demanded that the Twitter accounts of the four leaders be permanently suspended as they are "habitual of manufacturing forged content and misusing the Twitter platform for disseminating the same," they added.