TDP MP blames Modi government after WhatsApp blocks his account 

Telugu Desam Party (TDP) MP CM Ramesh's WhatsApp account was blocked on Saturday by the messaging application platform.

Ramesh, a member of the Rajya Sabha, said when he enquired with WhatsApp, he received a mail saying his account was blocked for violation of terms of service.

Ramesh alleged that the central government could be behind this due to political vendetta. He plans to raise the issue in Parliament and is also exploring legal options. He is said to be a bitter critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi ever since his party pulled out of the NDA following a fallout over the Special Category Status last year.

As PM Narendra Modi gears up to visit Andhra Pradesh, TDP has called for protests on Sunday, February 10.

In October, income tax raids were conducted on Ramesh and the company promoted by him. He had blamed the BJP-led government at the Centre for the raids.

"We have reason to believe your account activity has violated our Terms of Service and decided to keep your account banned. We received a large number of complaints about your account and in order to protect users' privacy, we won't disclose the nature of the complaints," read the mail the MP received from the WhatsApp support team.

The TDP leader said though he introduced himself as an MP and requested WhatsApp to reactivate his account, there was no response.

Ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, to fight disinformation or fake news, a menace that has been fuelling violence and polarisation, WhatsApp has decided to fight it by weeding out fake and abusive accounts.

According to a reports, WhatsApp has banned over 2 million accounts for the last three months. The messaging platform, releasing a white paper, said that over 75 percent of such accounts were blocked without needing a user report while 20 percent were caught and blocked at the time of registration.

The organisation said that it detects abuse, bulk messages, automated behaviour from accounts that send high volume of messages.

(With IANS inputs)