Twitter to hand @POTUS account to Joe Biden on Jan 20, even if Trump doesn't concede
Los Angeles: Micro-blogging site Twitter will hand control of the presidential @POTUS account to President-elect Joe Biden the moment he is sworn in on inauguration day on January 20, even if President Donald Trump has not conceded his election loss, the company has said.
The @POTUS account is the official account of the President of the United States and is separate from the @realDonaldTrump account that Trump uses to tweet.
Biden, 78, will be the 46th US President when he is sworn in.
The handover requires no sharing of information between the outgoing Trump team and the incoming Biden team, Twitter said, adding that all existing tweets on those accounts will be archived and Twitter will transfer the accounts reset to zero tweets to the Biden White House that day.
"Twitter is actively preparing to support the transition of White House institutional Twitter accounts on January 20th, 2021," Twitter spokesperson Nick Pacilio told Politico in an email.
"As we did for the presidential transition in 2017, this process is being done in close consultation with the National Archives and Records Administration," Pacilio said.
The same goes for @whitehouse, @VP, @FLOTUS, and a handful of other official accounts associated with the presidency, the report said on Friday.
Twitter also confirmed that staffers will meet with representatives from the Biden-Harris transition team in the coming months to review how the new administration plans to use its government-related accounts, The Hill reported.
The @POTUS account has more than 32 million followers and will provide Biden with another way to communicate with the public while in office.
Trump, the 45th US President, has so far refused to concede the November 3 presidential race to Biden, even though results released by election officials clearly give the race to the former US vice president. He has filed multiple lawsuits challenging the poll results in several states.
Biden was declared the winner of the US presidential election on November 7 after flipping the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin to the Democrats' column.
Biden now has 306 electoral votes to Trump's 232 votes. To win the race to the White House, the successful candidate should have at least 270 electoral votes out of the 538-member Electoral College.
An archive of Obama's @POTUS account can be found under the handle @POTUS44.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Campaigning for 1st phase of LS polls in Karnataka ends today
Bengaluru (PTI): Campaigning for 14 Lok Sabha seats in Karnataka going to polls in the first phase on April 26 will come to an end on Wednesday evening.
A total of 247 candidates -- 226 men and 21 women -- are in the fray for this round of voting in most of the southern and coastal districts.
It is a straight electoral contest between the ruling Congress and the BJP-Janata Dal (Secular) combine in the State.
While the Congress is contesting in all 14 seats, BJP has fielded nominees in 11, and its alliance partner JD(S) in three -- Hassan, Mandya and Kolar.
Besides the three, the segments where elections will be held on Friday are: Udupi-Chikmagalur, Dakshina Kannada, Chitradurga, Tumkur, Mysore, Chamarajanagar, Bangalore Rural, Bangalore North, Bangalore Central, Bangalore South and Chikkballapur.
The intense campaigning for the past about a month saw Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah leading from the front for the BJP, holding rallies and roadshows. BJP President J P Nadda, some Union Ministers and Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant too pitched in.
Veteran BJP leader and former Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa and the party's state president B Y Vijayendra also campaigned extensively.
Congress president M Mallikarjun Kharge, senior leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar and Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy were among the prominent names who led the charge for the party.
And for the JD(S), it was the 90-year-old party patriarch and former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda and former Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy, who led the campaign.
Chikkaballapur has a maximum number of 29 candidates, followed by 24 in Bangalore Central and Dakshina Kannada has the least number - nine.
Kumaraswamy from Mandya, his brother-in-law and noted cardiologist C N Manjunath from Bangalore Rural on a BJP ticket, erstwhile Mysuru royal family scion Yaduveer Krishnadatta Chamaraja Wadiyar from Mysore, also from the BJP, and state Congress President Shivakumar's brother and MP D K Suresh from Bangalore Rural, are among the prominent candidates in the fray in the first phase.
The state has a total of 28 Lok Sabha segments. The remaining 14 constituencies, mostly in the northern districts, will go to polls on May seven.
