The Twitter handle of the Prime Minister’s Office — @PMOIndia — on Tuesday came under the control of the new dispensation led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Its first tweet was a picture of the Prime Minister Modi offering tributes to Mahatma Gandhi. The next tweet invited its 1.27 million followers to the PMO’s revamped official website.
Another tweet said all tweets posted by Dr. Singh’s office were archived at the PMO website. “All Tweets from this account up till 26th May 2014 have been archived and can be seen here,” it said, giving the link. The decision of the Manmohan Singh PMO to archive all the tweets it sent out triggered a furore as in one stroke all the 1.27 million followers of the handle disappeared overnight.
Following the controversy, Dr. Singh’s office announced that “arrangements” had been made to handover all its digital assets to officials of the incoming administration.
Legally, Manmohan Singh’s office was on a sound footing as the move to archive the Twitter handle was in line with the provisions of the Right to Information Act.
