Two screenshots from an online tool called 'Twitter Follower Check' claiming to show that Delhi ministers Atishi and Saurabh Bharadwaj have unfollowed Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on X are false and inaccurate. BOOM found that both the Aam Aadmi Party leaders still follow Kejriwal on X.
Atishi on April 2, 2024, alleged that she was offered to join Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) “to safeguard her political career” and threatened with arrest if she refused. The BJP's Delhi unit denied the claim and sent a defamation notice to the AAP leader. Kejriwal was arrested on March 21, 2024, by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for his alleged connection to the liquor policy case. On April 1, 2024 the court remanded him to judicial custody till April 15.
The two screenshots show an online tool named 'Twitter Follow Check' showing that Atishi and Bharadwaj are not following Kejrwial on X. Right-wing columnist Abhijit Iyer-Mitra (@Iyervval) had posted both the screenshots on X making the claim. BOOM has previously debunked misinformation posted by Mitra on X.
On April 1, 2024, Mitra posted the first screenshot with the caption, "Looks like Atishi has stopped following Arvind Kejriwal. Can anyone confirm she used to follow him?". Iyer later quote tweeted his post with another screenshot and the caption, "BOOM!! And AAP minister Saurabh Bharadwaj (competitor to Atishi) has also unfollowed Arvind Kejriwal!!! The castle is crumbling folks (thanks for the tip @ShaatirBanda)"
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FACT-CHECK
BOOM found that both the AAP Delhi ministers Atishi and Saurabh Bharadwaj are still following Arvind Kejriwal on X and they did not unfollow him as being claimed in the viral screenshots of the online tool 'Twitter Follower Check'. We also found that the tool is inaccurate and is not showing correct results on whether two users follow each other.
We first manually checked the official X handle of Kejriwal and found that both Atishi and Bharadwaj are still following the AAP supremo. Below we can see that Kejriwal is still followed by both AAP leaders as checked from an X handle that follows all three of them.
BOOM then cross-checked using the online tool Social Blade, with the X profiles of Atishi and Saurabh Bharadwaj and found that they have not unfollowed any X accounts recently.
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Bharadwaj also took to X and dismissed the claim saying, "To all those spreading fake news, I and @ArvindKejriwal ji both follow each other."
Additionally, on cross-checking the online tool 'twitter follow check' from which the viral screenshots have been taken, we found it was giving inaccurate results despite a particular X handle following another handle. For example it showed that BOOM (@boomlive_in) does not follow BOOM Hindi (@BoomFactsHindi), which is not the case and is false.
