Bhubaneswar: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) today dropped a bombshell by alleging that Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has bought followers in his Twitter account (@Naveen_Odisha) to flaunt his social media clout in the State.

Addressing a press meet here, State BJP General Secretary Bhrugu Baxipatra said most of the followers in Naveen’s Twitter handle are fake and dubious.

He also alleged that thousands of paid followers, who don’t even know what Twitter is all about, have been added as followers in the CM’s micro-blogging site. "Naveen has only 1.5 lakh followers in his Twitter account till June, 2017 but in just two months – July and August – it touched a whopping 6.76 lakh. This shows the scale of goof-up in CM’s Twitter account," the Saffron leader pointed.

Citing a news website report, the State unit of BJP alleged that the CM’s Twitter account adds as many as 9,000 followers daily during July-August period while the entire state has not more than 3 lakh Twitter users.

“The CM’s Twitter handle shows it has an average 2.5 tweets per day and with this, how Patanik has accumulated over 6.72 lakh followers so far,” the BJP leader questioned.

Now, Naveen must answer how he has got so many followers in a short span of time, Baxipatra demanded.

Meanwhile, BJD reacted sharply on the allegation taking a dig at PM Narendra Modi’s Twitter followers.

“We all know that Naveen Patnaik’s popularity has grown and increasing day by day. There is nothing unusual in the rise of his twitter followers. It shows that the BJP is now shocked after Patnaik won the best administrator award recently,” said BJD leader Amar Prasad Satpathy.

“There are so many accounts in the CM’s Twitter handle which are yet to be verified but these are not fake accounts,” said State Information Technology Minister Chandra Sarathi Behera.

Referring to PM Narednra Modi’s followers in his Twitter handle, the minister said BJP might have acquired fake followers in PM’s account.

Worth mentioning, Patnaik, who had joined Twitter in September, 2015, has the highest number of followers among politicians in Odisha followed by Union Minister and poster boy of BJP in Odisha Dharmendra Pradhan with 4.97 lakh and BJD’s Kendrapara MP Baijayant Panda with 2.86 lakh.