Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s controversial tweets with communal overtures, including one in which he referred to the Muslim League as a green virus, have been deleted by Twitter following a notice from the Election Commission (EC). This comes after the EC drew flak from the Supreme Court (SC) for failing to take action in cases of violation of the Model Code of Conduct.
In a rally at Meerut on April 9, Yogi had said, “The Muslim League is a virus. If someone is affected by this virus, he cannot survive, and today’s main opposition party is affected by it. Know what will happen if they win? This virus will spread through the entire nation.” Yogi has been attacking the opposition for Rahul Gandhi’s nomination from Wayanad in Kerala which has a 45% Muslim electorate while 41% are Hindus.
The Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) had approached the EC against Yogi’s tweets and had asked to block Yogi’s twitter account. “This tweet from @myogiadityanath has been withheld in India in response to a legal demand,” read a message, instead of the tweets, on Yogi Adityanath’s Twitter handle.
Infamous for his communal remarks, at another rally in Bhopal on April 11, Yogi had said, “If the Congress, the SP and the BSP have faith in Ali, then we too have faith in Bajrang Bali. The opposition has acknowledged that the followers of Bajrang Bali will not vote for them”.
The EC had sent two notices to Yogi seeking an explanation for his inflammatory statements, including the one about ‘Modiji ki Sena’, before putting a 72-hour ban on his campaigns starting Tuesday morning.
It seems however that the EC action is a case of too little too late – by the time the tweet was deleted, it had received 5800 likes and over 1200 shares and the first phase of polling, including in Meerut where the communal remarks were made, had gotten over. Though the micro-blogging site had resolved to act against ‘dehumanising speeches’, it has failed to do so in time.
Of late, social media giants have been waking up to hate speech and fake news on their platforms. In September, Twitter had formulated a policy that was meant to prevent the “content that dehumanizes others based on their membership in an identifiable group, even when the material does not include a direct target.”
In March, online platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Google, had decided to create a high priority reporting mechanism for the EC and keep a dedicated team to take expeditious actions in case of any violations in the election season.
Reportedly, 34 tweets from 31 handles have been deleted after the EC’s notice, including those by the Union Minister and BJP candidate from Begusarai Giriraj Singh, BJP’s IT Cell head Amit Malviya, Shiromani Akali Dal MLA Manjinder Singh Sirsa among others.