Narendra Modi quits Weibo; BJP says PM sends strong message at personal level too

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday quit “Weibo” – two days after his government banned the use of the micro-blogging app developed by the Sina Corporation of China.

PM Modi deleted his profile picture as well as all his 115 posts on Weibo, after the micro-blogging app delayed to act on the request of his office to close his account.

“Weibo”, an equivalent of Twitter, was one of the 59 Chinese apps the Modi Government banned on Monday. New Delhi’s move came amid continuing military stand-off along the disputed India-China boundary in eastern Ladakh. The Ministry of Electronics and information Technology stated that the apps had been used in activities “prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order”

The Prime Minister had opened his account on the Weibo in May 2015 ahead of his first state visit to China. His posts in Chinese were a part of New Delhi’s public diplomacy campaign to reach out to the people of the communist country. He had 2.44 lakh followers on the Chinese micro-blogging platform.

Though the Prime Minister’s Office initiated the process to close the account soon after the ban on Weibo and 58 other Chinese apps were imposed, the “complex” procedure delayed the process. The 113 posts were manually deleted by Tuesday. Two other posts – with pictures of Modi and the Chinese President Xi Jinping – remained for another day. It was difficult to delete posts with pictures of Chinese President. The remaining two posts were also deleted on Wednesday.

The Embassy of India in Beijing had posted three statements on “WeChat” – another Chinese social media app – detailing New Delhi’s position on the stand-off between the Indian Army and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) on the disputed India-China boundary. The statements were removed on June 20.

Posts on social media in the communist country are constantly subjected to censorship. Several foreign apps – like Twitter, WhatsApp and Facebook – are banned in China.