How A 19-Year-Old Boy Became The Prime Minister Of India For 30 Minutes
The teenager from Lucknow in India says he still doesn't understand how it happened.
By Sadho Ram — 22 May 2014, 03:19 PM — Updated over 10 years ago
A 19-year-old inadvertently grabbed the "Prime Minister of India" Twitter handle - the same one India's top leaders are currently tussling over, reports BBC
He still doesn't understand how it happened
"I don't know how but it came into my mind to check PMO [Prime Minister's Office] of India, and when I realised it was available, I saved it for myself," he told BBC Trending.
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Ali, without realising it at the time, had just stepped into the middle of #Handlegate - a serious social media spat between the offices of India's soon-to-be sworn in leader, Narendra Modi, and the country's outgoing PM
Manmohan Singh started the @PMOIndia Twitter account, which grew to more than a million followers. But as he left office, his team decided not to simply hand the account over.
Instead they renamed and archived the Twitter handle - @PMOIndia was turned into @PMOIndiaArchive, taking the million plus followers with it.
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Narendra Modi's party, the BJP, which has just won the elections, criticised the move saying the Twitter account was a "national asset".
As for Qaiser Ali, the recent high school graduate, his tenure as @PMOIndia turned out to be brief
Without any explanation, after half an hour his Twitter handle reverted to its previous name.
Which actually came as a relief, he told BBC
"I was shocked, honoured, but also scared. I'm just a 19-year-old kid from India, and this is a government matter. When they found out, my parents scolded me and told me to apologise to all the people of India," he says/
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Why was Qaiser Ali able to grab the account name at all?
It seems he happened to sign up for it in the brief window between when the official account name was changed, and the new @PMOIndia handle was created.
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The former prime minister's communications advisor Pankaj Pachauri, in a series of tweets, defended the move, saying the @PMOIndia handle would still be available to the new prime minister's office and that it was all within the law.
Twitter says it does not comment on individual accounts and it is not clear who is now controlling @PMOIndia. The account has 15,000 followers, though it has yet to send its first tweet.
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Despite his brief but meteoric rise in Indian politics, Ali told BBC that he has no intention to pursue a career in public office
As for Qaiser Ali, he's not interested in a career in politics, he told BBC, despite his 30 minutes of fame. But that didn't stop him from retweeting a bunch of Narendra Modi's latest tweets, and one of the new prime minister holding up his appointment letter.
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