A tweet purporting to be from the official handle of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Karnataka handle making a derogatory reference to former Congress leader and soon-to-be BJP entrant- Jyotiraditya Scindia, is fake and from a parody account.
The tweet from the handle @BJP4Karnatakaa is going viral after Scindia announced his resignation from the Indian National Congress on March 10, 2020 shortly after he met with Home Minister Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, at his residence.
The parody account quote tweeted Scindia's resignation letter dated March 9, 2020 to Sonia Gandhi and wrote, "on this auspicious occasion of holi, we just bought a new dog." The tweet had over 2000 retweets and over 5800 Likes.
On this auspicious occasion of holi, we just bought a new dog.#JyotiradityaScindia #MPPoliticalCrisishttps://t.co/sS2ZBHpWj0
— BJP Karnatakaa (@BJP4Karnatakaa) March 10, 2020
Several replies to the tweet suggest that many people believed it to be real before figuring out the account was a parody.
I fell for a parody handle 🤦
— Girish (@GirishNaught) March 10, 2020
Fine. Go. Make fun of me. Free for all guys 😥
Screenshots of the tweet are being shared on WhatsApp and is also being shared by members of the Congress' social media cell.
This tweet is by BJP Karnataka Page where they mentioned they bought a dog on holi,
— Hussain Haji (@hussainhajinsui) March 10, 2020
Is @JM_Scindia a Dog?
Scindia pariwar ka Raja ab kutta hai B.J.P ka?#Har_Scindia_Madhavrao_Nahi_Hota pic.twitter.com/t82DpoMDvF
Dear @JM_Scindia Before you go tho @Bjp they called you as a Dog.
— @iambinay (@BinayJenaINC) March 10, 2020
See the prove.
Shamefull welcome .
Perhaps @INCIndia never offense you like this. pic.twitter.com/y59D7PF7JZ
PARODY ACCOUNT
The account @BJP4Karnatakaa is a parody account. It is unverified and has an extra alphabet 'a' in Karnataka in its display name and profile URL. The account was set up on April 16, 2019 yet it had only about 62 tweets. A visit to the profile of the account makes it clear that it is a parody account.
The parody account had a little over 1100 followers and was following the real BJP4Karnataka account, at the time of writing this story.
Meanwhile the actual BJP4Karnataka account is verified and has over 3,68,500 followers on Twitter.
In dramatic turn of events on the festival of Holi, 49-year old Jyotiraditya Scindia who was rumoured to be unhappy with the senior Congress leadership met with the home minister and prime minister. Soon after he announced his resignation online tweeting a letter dated March 9, 2020. Meanwhile the Congress hit back by expelling him from the party. Scindia was passed over for the CM's post after the party won the assembly election in Madhya Pradesh in 2018. He is expected to join the BJP imminently.