india

Updated: Dec 26, 2019 12:52 IST

Congress and BJP are involved in a battle on social media on detention centres in the country.

First, it was Congress leader Rahul Gandhi who tweeted an edited video clip of a news report which has a portion of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech where he says there are no detention centres in India.

The former Congress president has used hashtag #JhootJhootJhoot along with the caption “The Prime Minister of the RSS lies to Mother India” in Hindi.

In less than two hours, the BJP came back with a response with the party’s IT cell in-charge Amit Malviya tweeting a screenshot of Press Information Bureau’s 2011 press release with the title 362 illegal migrants sent to detention camps in Assam.

Rahul Gandhi



Seen this press release from 2011 issued by the Congress govt claiming to have sent 362 illegal migrants to ‘detention camps’ in Assam.



Just because India has rejected you repeatedly, are you hell bent on destroying it with your politics of hate and fear mongering? pic.twitter.com/wc9HPWjBlS — Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) December 26, 2019

“Rahul Gandhi. Seen this press release from 2011 issued by the Congress govt claiming to have sent 362 illegal migrants to ‘detention camps’ in Assam. Just because India has rejected you repeatedly, are you hell bent on destroying it with your politics of hate and fear mongering?” Malviya said in his tweet accompanying the photograph.

PM Modi, while addressing a massive rally in Delhi on Sunday, had said there are no detention centres in India. “No Muslim is being sent to detention centres, nor are there any detention centres in India. I am shocked at the lengths some people can go to spread lies,” he had said in his address.

The Prime Minister also claimed that “Urban Naxals” and various opposition parties had launched a campaign of misinformation against the new citizenship law because they were angry about him winning the Lok Sabha polls and coming to power for a second term.

Referring to the nationwide protests which had erupted against the new citizenship law, in which 15 people were killed in Uttar Pradesh alone, the prime minister accused the Congress of encouraging the protests and spreading rumours about religious minorities.

The Opposition had taken strong exception to Prime Minister’s remarks. “Does PM Modi believe Indians can’t do a simple Google search to fact check his lies? Detention Centres are extremely real and will continue to grow as long as this government is in power,” the Congress party posted on its official Twitter handle.

Protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act had broken out across the country after it was passed by Parliament on December 11, leaving many dead and moveable and immoveable assets damaged, mostly in arson.