PMO twitter handle renamed as PMOIndiaArchives, BJP fumes

As Narendra Modi prepares to take charge as the next Prime Minister of India, an avoidable controversy is raging over the twitter handle PMOIndia. The managers of outgoing Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh’s official twitter handle PMOIndia have now renamed it as Dr Manmohan Singh @PMOIndiaArchive. Its bio/introduction says “Archival material under the RTI Act for @PMOIndia till 20/5/2014. @PMOIndia will be available shortly”.
The BJP which has returned to power under Narendra Modi is questioning the decision. According to a leading news agency ANI, the BJP said “Outgoing team PM Office has wrongly renamed Twitter handle of @PMOIndia against laws & accepted global norms of handover of digital assets”.
It argued that the post of the Prime Minister is permanent and nobody has exclusive right over what a Prime Minister does in his official capacity during his term in the office. Arvind Gupta,BJP IT Cell Head said,”In an unethical manner they renamed @PMOIndia accnt,should have archived the tweets & handed over the handle.”
BJP argues the post of the PM is permanent and nobody has exclusive right over what a PM does in his official capacity during his term in the office.
According to experts, the tweets of the PMOIndia twitter handle are India’s digital assets and it does not belong to outgoing Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh.
They demand that the outgoing team of Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh must hand over the twitter handle to next Prime Minister Narendra Modi without archiving any of its contents or deleting it as alleged by some people.
Twitter is abuzz with tweets questioning, criticizing and ridiculing the decision. Some are even alleging that the team of outgoing Prime Minister is deleting a lot tweets and Direct Messages.
According to reports outgoing PM’s media advisor Pankaj Pachauri was handling the PMOIndia twitter handle. The outgoing team at the PMO has not given any reasons for changing the name of twitter handle and archiving its contents. He has tweeted, “An advisory- All our official communications are being archived according to the RTI Act. Copyrights and control remain with the office.”