Divya Spandana goes missing from Twitter

New Delhi: Social media in-charge of the Congress Divya Spandana, also known as Ramya, has gone missing from microblogging site Twitter. Her profile page now says, “This account doesn’t exist.”

In her last post on Twitter, she had extended her wishes to finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman for becoming the first female finance minister since 1970 when Indira Gandhi was in charge of the portfolio. Interestingly the Congress media department declined any comment on Ms Spandana’s account being deleted. She has been credited with a turnaround of the Congress party’s social media presence.

It is still unclear whether she has deactivated her account as the Congress has barred its spokespersons for appearing on TV channels for one month or some other issue is at play. In October last year, there was a tiff between Ms Spandana and some in her party. She had then removed her Twitter bio, which stated her designation of the Congress’ social media head.

Insiders had claimed that there was a rift between her and the party as it had got in Nikhil Alva, son of senior Congress leader Margaret Alva, to do some of the jobs that were assigned to her. Sources even add that Mr Alva is keen on replacing Ms Spandana.

Ms Spandana took over reins of the Congress’ social media department in the middle of 2017. She is responsible for turning around the presence of the party on the social media and it was under her leadership that the party could match up to the BJP’s online onslaught. During the Lok Sabha campaigning also she was at the forefront of the attack on the BJP. Her sudden disappearance from the social media scene is certainly a cause of worry for the party.

The party is already reeling under the impact of the massive drubbing it got in the Lok Sabha elections and with a top social media influencer going, the party will have a tough job finding a replacement.