Congress Lok Sabha leader registers FIR after controversy over his tweet on former PM Rajiv Gandhi

The controversy arose after the Congress leaders tweeted a comment attributed to the former Prime Minister on his death anniversary, along with a picture of the leader. “When a big tree falls, the earth shakes,” Chaudhary allegedly tweeted and later deleted the post," writes ETV Bharat's Amit Agnihotri.

New Delhi: Congress Lok Sabha leader Adhir Ranjan Chaudhary on Saturday lodged an FIR with the police saying that his Twitter account had been hacked, shortly after a controversy erupted over his latest post relating to former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

“Today, an unscrupulous, biased, and a tainted content with absolute malafide was posted on my Twitter account when I was busy with the party program on the dais and did not carry my phone,” Chaudhary said in his complaint to the SHO South Avenue police station.

“The content smacks of malice and I believe that my Twitter account had been hacked by some wrongdoers for the reasons best known to them,” he said, urging the police to seal the IP address and take appropriate action in the cybercrime at the earliest.

The controversy arose after the Congress leaders tweeted a comment attributed to the former Prime Minister on his death anniversary, along with a picture of the leader. “When a big tree falls, the earth shakes,” Chaudhary allegedly tweeted and later deleted the post.

The former prime minister had reportedly said the lines after his mother and former prime minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated on October 31, 1984. The BJP used Chaudhary’s tweet to target Congress.

BJP leader Gaurav Bhatia posted screenshots of the alleged tweet from Chaudhary and further mentioned that “when a big tree falls, a few thousand are killed.” Bhatia was referring to the riots that followed the former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s assassination in Delhi and other parts of the country in which the Sikhs were targeted.

The riots took place as two Sikh security guards of the former prime minister had opened fire on her, killing her on the spot. Later, Rajiv Gandhi’s critics had linked his “big tree” comment to the riots. Punjab BJP leader Manjinder Singh Sirsa alleged that the grand old party hated the Sikhs and that the Lok Sabha MP’s tweet indicated that. He sought a case to be registered against Chaudhary over his comments.