Congress' Adhir Chowdhury Blames Hackers For "Mighty Tree Falls" Tweet

Leader of the Congress in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury on Saturday blamed hackers for posting a graphic featuring former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's infamous 'When a big tree falls' quote on the latter's death anniversary.

The now deleted tweet showed a graphic featuring photos of Gandhi and Chowdhury with the infamous quote "When a big tree falls, the ground shakes" on it.

Chowdhury has filed a complaint with the New Delhi's South Avenue police station claiming that his Twitter account had been hacked to post the graphic.

He claimed in his complaint that he was speaking at a party program and did not carry his mobile phone to the stage when the tweet was posted.

On October 31, 1984, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by two of her Sikh body guards. Her death led to widespread riots in North India targetting Sikhs.

Nineteen days after her assassination, her son Rajiv justified the riots saying, "Some riots took place in the country following the murder of Indiraji. We know the people were very angry and for a few days it seemed that India had been shaken. But, when a mighty tree falls, it is only natural that the earth around it does shake a little."

The tweet featuring the graphic was deleted from Chowdhury's account and the five-time Berhampore Lok Sabha Member of Parliament later claimed that was he had not tweeted out the graphic.

"The tweet against my name in the tweeter account has nothing to do with my own observation" Chowdhury tweeted adding that a malicious campaign is being propagated by "forces inimical to me".

BOOM has reached out to Twitter asking if Chowdhury's account had indeed been hacked and if he had reached out to the social media company for their help in getting back control of his account. The story will be updated as and when Twitter responds.