Bharatiya Janata Party’s  IT Cell Head Amit Malviya has been trying to amplify ‘news’ that West Bengal’s Metiabruz constituency has registered a more than  9% increase in voters last year. Malviya also reminded his followers that this constituency was once ‘referred to as mini-Pakistan by TMC minister Firhad Hakim’. Adding that West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who the BJP has been referring to as Pishi, or paternal aunt, “has been silently overseeing demographic change” in the state “to serve her political interests.”

Metiabruz constituency, famously referred to as mini-Pakistan by TMC minister Firhad Hakim, registers over 9% increase in voters in last year alone!

Pishi has been silently overseeing demographic change of West Bengal just to serve her political interests.

Is the EC watching? pic.twitter.com/oOkaIxvK1h

— Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) December 21, 2020

He of course is alluding that there has been an increase in Muslim vote that he alleged has been somehow done by CM Mamata Banerjee and her party the Trinamool Congress (TMC). As always the hint often extends to the BJP’s ‘concerns’ with what it has termed ‘illegal Banglaedshi immigrants.’  Now the BJP is directly accusing the TMC of a ‘ demographic change’ ahead of  the state’s Assembly elections. Soon enough BJP IT Cell Head Amit Malviya’s tweet featuring a Bangla newspaper clipping, was picked up and featured by the Right Wing blog OpIndia, which stated that  according to the newspaper clip shared by Amit Malviya, “the ‘unusual’ rise in the number of voters has led to an increase in polling booths in the Metiabruz constituency (6) and Topsia area (8) of West Bengal. The stark increase in electorates in a span of just one year has led to renewed skepticism of the current political dispensation.” 

It quoted CPIM leader Rabin Deb as saying: “The process of correcting the voter list has been the biggest conspiracy. They are not eliminating the names of those who have already died. The Communist Party wants that the Election Commission verify the death of such individuals directly, on receiving information about the same. If family members of the deceased fail to show proof, then, we need the truth of the case must be verified with the Municipality or panchayat.”

The BJP has also made another strong allegation stated the blog, “that instead of undertaking the verification themselves, the Booth Level Officers (BLOs) have outsourced it to TMC workers and supporters”. According to the report “in the Muslim-dominated Metiabruz constituency, more than 19,500 voters have increased in one year, thereby representing a rise of 9%.”  The RW blog added that “in the Lok Sabha elections, a total of 2,35, 105 people were eligible to vote in Metiabruz constituency. However, when the voter list was published, the number had gone up to 2,52,615. As per the report, the Metiabruz constituency includes ward No. 136-141 of the Kolkata municipality. It has been found that a total of 400, 450 and 900 voters on the list have expired in ward No.s 137, 138 and 141 respectively but their names feature in the voter list.”

Now the State unit of the BJP has written to the Election Commission of India (ECI), over the “sudden” increase in the number of voters. The blog, quoted from the letter itself: “From the draft electoral list that was made public on 18 November, it was noticed that there has been a sharp rise in the numbers of electors, especially in many parts that are very close to the Bangladesh border and those that are predominantly minority voters.” The BJP has also alleged that an “increase in electorates has been observed in Metiabruz constituency and Sonarpur Uttar in South 24 Parganas district in West Bengal,” adding that the list is not updated and  names of “dead voters and those who have changed their dwelling place are not struck out from the voter’s list.” It alleged that “in the past elections, it has been seen these votes have also been cast.” 

While it is not yet known if theElection commission has taken cognisance of the BJP’s complaint, the IT cell is busy sending out messages targeting Mamata Bangerjee and the state government, hoping to get noticed. 

In August 2020 alone, West Bengal reported 223 cases of rape. Women’s safety is at its lowest ever in the last 9 years with Pishi as home minister. Be it human trafficking or acid attacks, criminals have had a free run.

All that Pishi has cared for is votes and votebank! Shame. pic.twitter.com/waqdFy5aBK

— Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) December 22, 2020

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The post BJP’s Amit Malviya accuses Mamata Banerjee, of changing WB demography appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader, lawyer and Rajya Sabha member Subramanian Swamy had exposed the party’s  Information and Technology (IT) cell chief Amit Malviya much before Twitter recognised that Malviya manipulated media.  Swamy had demanded that Malviya be sacked because he posted fake tweets and ran smear campaigns. “The BJP IT cell has gone rogue. Some of its members are putting out fake ID tweets to make personal attacks on me,” stated Swamy then. However, the BJP seems to be in no mood to sack Amit Malviya, and instead had promoted him further by making him a co-incharge of the party in  West Bengal ahead of the elections. A sign that his style of social media management is valued by the party as it prepares for the electoral battle for Bengal. Malaviya seems to enjoy the confidence, and the protection as it were, of the party leadership, especially Home Minister Amit Shah.

Even though Twitter has officially called out Malviya’s ‘manipulated media’ tweets with a tag identifying it., for the first time ever against a political person, it is unlikely that Bharatiya Janata Party’s will ask its IT cell head for an explanation. The manipulated clip from the farmers’ protests, he tweeted  showed an elderly sikh farmer being hit with a baton by a policeman in riot gear. However, Malviya had claimed that the man was not hit at all, and instead showed a clip taken from the cop’s POV of the laathi mid air, and the old man running away. He used this  ‘manipulated media’ to taunt Rahul Gandhi calling him the “most discredited opposition leader India has seen in a long long time”. 

Twitter’s  Synthetic and Manipulated Media policy states:  “We also consider whether the context in which media are shared could result in confusion or misunderstanding or suggests a deliberate intent to deceive people about the nature or origin of the content, for example by falsely claiming that it depicts reality.”

Now even after  Twitter has taken restrictive action against Malviya, he  has not deleted the tweet, and instead his followers have retweeted it over ten thousand times at last count.  Twitter’s action is unlikely to have any effect on Malviya or the IT cell he runs. It is an example of Twitter showcasing that its recent policy changes are being enacted. Twitter had masked outgoing US president Donald  Trumps tweets about the elections as disputed as well. According to a report in News18 Twitter tagged as ‘Manipulated Media’ a tweet by Donald Trump, that showed toddlers of different races hugging. Trump’s tweet was presented as a false CNN broadcast clipped video that began with the black toddler apparently ‘running away’ from the white toddler, with  ‘headline’ “Terrified toddler runs from racist baby”, complete with the CNN logo, stated the news report. However the complete video shows friendship between  the two toddlers who ran up to each other, hugged and played together for a while. Trump signed off by posting: “America is not the problem. Fake news is”.  His ‘Manipulated Media’ tweet however got flagged globally.

Malaviya perhaps took notes. 

Related:

BJP IT cell has gone rogue: Subramanian Swamy

What do right wing trolls earn by insulting India’s farmers?

BJP Vs BJP: From Savarkar to Swamy over flyovers, and onto Twitter

Did Facebook just play a great Indian matchmaker and unite the Right, Left, and 

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