Welcome to the most ridiculous “controversy” of all time.

It was supposed to be a simple affair – as simple as handing over the keys of your car to the new owner. After all, the formality had been dealt with. But it snowballed into yet another controversy – one that Congress, for its own sake, could and should have avoided.

The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has an official Twitter handle called @PMOIndia (typically uncommunicative and insipid). This is the bone of contention this time. The controversy was triggered when the incumbent PMO reset the verified official handle and transferred all its contents to a new handle called @PMOIndiaArchive. The Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) which was left to start afresh and cultivate new followers, was understandably “fuming” (it is a little funny though, how everyone from Headlines Today  to IBN7  used the same adjective to describe BJP’s reaction, considering it was not an agency copy). Like most controversies of recent times, this one too initially unfolded on Twitterland (only appropriate perhaps since this one is about all-things-Twitter).

What compounded the fiasco was, of course, the lack of any formidable precedence. The one country – notwithstanding the fervent political discourse that social media has seen in our country over the past year – is the United States of America. The United States, however, hasn’t seen a change in regime since Twitter became such a force to reckon with. Also, the dynamics are slightly different in the case of the United States. President Barack Obama has a personal account with the handle @barackobama which is manned by the Organizing for Action, a not-for-profit organisation. Personal tweets from Obama come with the signature “bo”. The White House has its own separate handle – which, surprisingly, is not one of Obama’s 41.5 million followers.

Brazil is one of the few countries to have seen a change in regime after the social media storm attacked the world. There, Dilma Roussef (the new president in 2011) inherited the Brazil government’s official Twitter account set up in 2009.

Another precedent – though not strictly in the political sphere – was when Pope Francis started using the Twitter account set up by Pope Benedict.  The Vatican had then announced that the @Pontifex handle used by Pope Benedict would be available to the new Pope if he chose to use it. The new Pope retained all of Benedict’s followers and continues to tweet (albeit with much less vigour) from the @Pontifex handle.  However, all of Pope Benedict’s earlier tweets were deleted and archived on an official Vatican network page.

There’s another side to the story. In 2010, Dmitry Medvedev, in a bid to make his account more “personal”, imported his tweets and followers from the official President of Russia handle @KremlinRussia to @MedvedevRussia. The @KremlinRussia handle was not abandoned though. It was rebuilt from scratch and used mostly for official communication as opposed to the previous arrangement where Medvedev used the handle to make personal tweets as well.

Incidentally, the Kenyan government had archived ex-Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s tweets on a special account called @Archive_PMO_Kenya account. That account, though, no longer exists.

Clearly, the rules for handover of official Twitter accounts have not been set in stone. Not yet, at least. In general though, the Congress’ decision to not hand over the @PMOIndia handle to BJP in its original form hasn’t gone down too well with social media and its offshoots. Shaili Chopra, author of a book on social media called The Big Connect, expressing her apprehension over the incumbent PMO’s move said that “it will set a strange precedent”. Speaking to Newslaundry, Chopra said that such an arrangement could lead to loss of important official digital exchange – a development that can only be considered a negative.

Cyber law expert Pawan Duggal was quoted by the Times of India saying that it was a “mishandling of digital assets”. The TOI report has Duggal pointing out “that prima facie the changeover in the official handle here is ‘tantamount to diminishing the value and utility of electronic information’ when section 66 and 43 of the IT Act are read together”.

When we managed to talk to him, he had more to say.”The handle was used for the PM’s official communication to the world and hence it is part of the country’s critical information infrastructure. More than anything, it should be a wake-up call for the government to frame a more robust digital document which takes into account situations as these, keeping in tune with the times”, Duggal told Newslaundry.

By way of clarification, Pankaj Pachauri, Communications Adviser to the outgoing Prime Minister, sent out the following tweets over the past few days.

Dear all, the @PMOIndia account has been vacated to facilitate handover to the new administration. Explained here – pic.twitter.com/BXUkIJuOOH

— Pankaj Pachauri (@PankajPachauri) May 20, 2014

More clarification: This is an office account and the office continues to manage it. The handover is being facilitated.

When Newslaundry contacted Pachauri, he assured us that a written clarification is being drafted and will be mailed to us whenever ready. We haven’t got anything as yet. This story will be updated as and when we receive a response from Pachauri.

Narendra Modi’s official twitter handle has thus far been mum on the issue.  It is unlikely that he’ll be too bothered about building a new PMO handle from scratch.  At 4.25 million followers, he has almost three times the number of followers the @PMOIndiaArchive handle has and he seems to understand the social media much more than (possibly most) people manning the old handle. As for the ethics of the outgoing PMO’s decision, it’s fairly simple. The PMO’s Twitter handle is the digital property of the person in PM’s office. Manmohan Singh (and Pankaj Pachauri) should have little doubt about who that person currently is.

Update: The PMO has now released a statement  which states that the “Twitter account @PMOIndia has been secured by Twitter and they are assisting in the handover of the same to this office to be available to the incoming PMO administration along with its followers”. The statement also says that the  “existing material on Dr. Manmohan Singh will be separately available under a new account on Twitter”.