TDP's Twitter account hacked

Amaravati, March 19

The Twitter account of Andhra Pradesh's main opposition Telugu Desam Party (TDP) was hacked on Saturday.

TDP General Secretary Nara Lokesh, son of TDP president and former Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, said in a tweet: "Kindly note that our official party account @jaitdp has been hacked by nefarious elements. We are working with Twitter India to restore the account."

The account was apparently hacked in the early hours of Saturday and the hackers posted a tweet from SpaceX.

In response to this, dozens of messages were posted by the TDP's Twitter handle like "awesome", "love this", and "great job".

The development comes amid the ongoing row over West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's allegation that the previous TDP government had purchased spyware from Pegasus.

Reacting to the allegation, Nara Lokesh revealed that the TDP government had rejected the offer of Pegasus to sell its spyware to the state.

Lokesh, who was Minister for Information Technology in the TDP cabinet, clarified that the former state government did not purchase any spyware.

"She was misinformed. If we had resorted to such things, Jagan Mohan Reddy would not have come to power in 2019," he said.

Meanwhile, the ruling YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) has demanded a probe into the allegation.