PMOIndia and the Twitter fiasco: Much ado about nothing?

Nothing is safe from the heat of the elections season, not even the seemingly innocuous Twitter switch made yesterday by the India Prime Minister’s Office on Twitter. The official PMOIndia Twitter account changed to PMOIndiaArchive, leaving a new PMOIndia account for the PM-elect Narendra Modi, who will be sworn in as India’s new Prime Minister on Monday. So why is dust being kicked off over this seemingly innocuous change? Essentially, the BJP is upset that the Congress, in what many are calling a parting shot, has left Modi and his office with a barren account to build from the ground up. Its leaders on Twitter pointed out that the Congress has used the official like it were a personal account for Dr Manmohan Singh, the PM till he resigned this week. The critics of this move point out that Twitter allows users to download their tweet archives and save it, and that Congress has mishandled the transition of a 'digital asset'. People point to the examples of foreign government accounts which have made the shift without such drama, like the official Brazil handle @portalbrasil. It must be noted that this is the first time that a Twitter transition is taking place within the Indian government and naturally there will be some hiccups. In an official statement, the Singh’s former communications adviser Pankaj Pachauri explained the transition. 

Dear all, the @PMOIndia account has been vacated to facilitate handover to the new administration. Explained here - pic.twitter.com/BXUkIJuOOH — Pankaj Pachauri (@PankajPachauri) May 20, 2014

The tweet was posted with this text: “All official communications from PMO in print and in digital form are being archived according to the RTI Act. Copyrights and control remain with the Prime Minister's office. These are PMO properties and the Prime Minister's office continues to manage them. The handover is being facilitated for the next administration. This is the first time such handover is taking place leading to speculation.”  

More clarification: This is an office account and the office continues to manage it. The handover is being facilitated. — Pankaj Pachauri (@PankajPachauri) May 20, 2014

Yes, those in charge should have handled the change better and could even have passed on the same account to Modi's team. It looks like they wanted to make the transition clear and precise, leaving no room for ambiguity about which administration tweeted it. In their effort to create a clear and separate record of his communications, the PMO's communication team has mismanaged the transfer of the account. One also needs to understand that even after Modi takes over as PM, Manmohan Singh will still have some official obligations as a former PM. The controversy being spun over this totally loses the point. The name PMOIndia remains the same for Modi too. Yes, users will have to follow it again, but that's hardly a big problem for someone like Modi, who already has in excess of 4 million followers on his personal account. If he has to say something he will be heard one way or the other. And now he has a new handle to pin to his Twitter bio to redirect people to the PMOIndia account. As for the official account losing its pedigree or vaunted status due to this renaming, that's just politicians assigning too much importance to something that doesn't deserve it. If this is Congress's parting shot, it's a rather meek one.