LAHORE – In an unprecedented development the Pakistan Muslim League Nawazhas virtually stolen and hijacked the Punjab government official twitteraccount.
PML N changed the official Twitter account of the government of Punjab toits party name, in an ongoing cyber tiff with the recently installed regimeheaded by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf.
The Government of Punjab had three official accounts on Twitter:
1. Punjab Government (2013-18) – @GovtOfPunjab (verified)226K followers
2. Government of the Punjab – @PunjabGovtpk (interim)1,150 Followers
3. PunjabGovtOfficial – @punjabgovt_ (new)540 Followers
However, the former ruling party initially refused to hand over thecredentials to PTI, and now took an extra mile by altogether converting theofficial handle to PML-N’s one.
Imran Ghazali, who headed the digital media campaign of PakistanTehreek-e-Insaf in 2013, expressed his dismay on Twitter over thedevelopment and also elaborated that another account with the same handleas the previous one @GovtofPunjab was created which would start garneringfollowers from scratch.
The account had 226K followers when former Chief Minister Punjab ShehbazSharif just completed his stint, however, the newly created accounts has 61followers *currently*, in a major waste of digital resources and sponsoredcampaigns launched by the previous government.
Ghazali was the one who had claimed that the former ruling regime was notpassing over the credentials of the accounts to their successors,apparently due to the political rivalry that rose to a crescendo before theGeneral Elections.
Traditionally, the official accounts cannot be converted to the accounts ofany party and the username/passwords are to be handed over to the nextruling elite for smooth flow of information, however, this has not beendone.