Parliamentary panel seeks Twitter’s response on locking of accounts of Ravi Shankar Prasad, Shashi Tharoor

A parliamentary panel on Tuesday asked Twitter to explain with 48 hours why it had blocked access of Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and Congress MP Shashi Tharoor to their accounts, sources said.

The missive from the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information and Technology, headed by Tharoor, came amid a continuous tussle between the microblogging platform and the central government over various issues, including new IT rules.

The panel was instructed by Tharoor to seek reply from Twitter on the blocking of access to accounts of Prasad and others on its platform, the sources said.