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Updated: Jul 02, 2019 09:52 IST

The entire top brass of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological parent of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), finally got their Twitter handles verified. According to Sangh, the move is aimed at preventing fake accounts.

Those who got their accounts verified include RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, Suresh Soni, Krishna Gopal, Arun Kumar, V Bhagiah, Aniruddha Deshpande, and Suresh Joshi. Joint general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale is the only senior RSS leader who has a social media presence with 431 tweets and 41,000 odd followers.

By the end of the day, Bhagwat had almost 23,000 followers but no tweets at all.

He was only following the RSS’s own verified Twitter handle which was started in 2011. It puts out official statements and shares information about upcoming events. “We came across many fake accounts of sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat, general secretary Suresh Joshi, and joint general secretaries; sometimes there used to be fake posts from these unverified handles,” said an RSS leader.