In what could whip up a debate on the online behaviour of government officials, especially those working in the sensitive Ministry of Defence (MoD), a defence public relations officer has re-tweeted caustic political comments on his Twitter handle, which by auto-linking have also appeared on his Facebook page.
Group Captain Basant B. Pande, Defence PRO at Allahabad, on November 25, re-tweeted snide political comments against Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi with the hashtag, #RahulStumped, on his twitter handle @BasantPande where he identifies himself as ‘Basant Pande PRO MoD.’
The tweets have been shared with his friends on his Facebook page, ‘Pro Bbp Dpr Mod’ where he describes himself as ‘Public Relations Officer & Spokesperson at Ministry of Defence.’
One of the re-tweets goes thus: “RahulGandhi should lecture only Congi retards...he'll get standing ovation” (sic). “#RahulStumped Again Pappu made his mother feel ashamed” is how another one reads. The posts are on the interaction Mr. Gandhi had with students of a professional college in Bengaluru.
While the Ministry of Defence refused to officially comment on the issue, Group Captain Pande defended himself in a telephone conversation with The Hindu , maintaining that there was no restriction on officials forwarding political remarks. “As a PRO, I re-tweet tweets from the MoD principal spokesperson Mr. Sitanshu Kar and share posts from the official Facebook page of the Ministry. The rules only stipulate that one should not give away confidential information online. That apart, just re-tweeting someone’s comment is a non-issue,” he insisted.
He made light of the question whether it did not amount to endorsing political views saying it was a legal question. “You tell me if re-tweeting amounts to endorsing a view,” he said.
However, senior officials in the Ministry said on condition of anonymity that even PROs were not authorised to offer political comments in public in their official capacity.
