Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Ministers Mehbooba Mufti and Omar Abdullah battled it out with emojis on social media on Tuesday afternoon, to the amusement of Twitter users.
It began with Abdullah’s claim that Mufti had promised both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party that she would support their respective candidates for the post of the deputy chairperson in the Rajya Sabha. “How does that work exactly,” he asked.
Soon after, Mufti accused Abdullah of peddling “fake news and falsehoods”. “Usually fake news [and] falsehoods are peddled by dubious news channels,” she wrote on the social media platform. “But [it’s] baffling when a politician like Omar Abdullah fabricates stories based on pure fiction. Such dangerous propaganda is detrimental to the truth & [and] an attempt to mislead people.”
In another response to Abdullah’s tweet, she replied with an emoji – a face with a long nose, which is generally used to indicate a lie.
Abdullah responded with another pair of emojis – a laughing face and a thumbs-up emoji. He also wrote: “Hats off to who ever [sic] operates your account for you. They actually have a sense of humour. Nice emoji use.”
Mufti accused Abdullah of using fake news again, and wrapped up the battle of the emoticons with an emoji of a woman face-palming. “Give a compliment where it’s due Omar,” she wrote.
The election to the post of Rajya Sabha deputy chairperson is scheduled for Thursday. The post has been lying vacant since PJ Kurien retired in June.
While the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance has not officially announced its candidate, unidentified party officials told PTI said first-time parliamentarian Harivansh of the Janata Dal (United) is likely to be its candidate. Nationalist Congress Party MP Vandana Chavan may be the Opposition’s joint candidate.
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