Sadananda Gowda claimed that he did not block columnist, Chakravarthy Sulibele, on Twitter over questioning about flood relief funds. Rather, it was the outcome of global Twitter outage. This started a widespread Twitter trend, #NotFairModiji
DV Sadananda Gowda, Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilizers, muddled up major controversy after he apparently blocked a columnist on Twitter on Wednesday. But the (apparent) ‘blocking’ became controversial and became the talk of the town. It was the result of Columnist Chakravarthy Sulibele slamming PM Narendra Modi on Twitter because of the delay in providing relief funds for Karnataka flood victims.
Where are the relief funds?
The whole story started weaving when on Monday Sadananda Gowda criticised people who had raised voices against the central government’s delay in releasing relief funds.
Not only this, but he also noted that a report pertaining to the same has been submitted to the Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman. Subsequently, the minister received major backlash for this on Twitter.
Later, Sadananda Gowda took to Twitter and claimed that some people were laying out false news and hence confusing the public. “In flood-affected states, reports for immediate relief, mid-term and long term relief have been prepared by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.”
All this led to the moment when columnist Chakravarthy Sulibele took to Twitter on Wednesday. “Lol! This man came now. @DVSadanandGowda I feel bad for those who believe that the people of North Karnataka are being misled. Do not forget that your ministership is the alms given by the people to you. Which of these is a solution to releasing funds for flood relief?”
Blocked by Twitter
Within a couple of hours, the columnist shared a photo that showed that Sadananda Gowda had blocked him.
Of course, the word reached the minister. Vishweshwar Bhat, the editor of Kannada daily Vishwawani, enquired the minister about the apparent block on Twitter quoting it as an unfair move.
To this, Union Minister Sadananda Gowda denied that he had blocked Chakravarthy. Instead, he cited the reason to be the global outage that the social media platform faced on Wednesday.
Sadananda Gowda explained, “Why should I block anyone, sir? It’s democracy everyone has right to express what they feel but there is a way to express. Just for info – Tweets were not working 3-4 hrs today during a day.”
