New Delhi, Jun 5 (IANS): Microblogging social media site Twitter on Saturday removed the blue verified tick badge from the personal handle of India's Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu for a few hours.

The blue tick badge was however later restored after a few hours.

However, the official handle of the Vice President of India @VPSecretariat, which was run by the Vice President's Secretariat, continues to have the blue badge.

"The personal Twitter handle of the Vice President was not being used for some time because his tweets were being posted from his official account. It came to our notice today (Saturday) morning that the blue tick has been removed from Vice President's personnel Twitter account.

"Subsequently, we talked to Twitter over the issue and they informed us that the algorithm had been removed automatically as the account was not active for long," a source in the Vice President's office told IANS.

"We raised the issue with Twitter and they were in process of restoring it."

The Vice President posted his last tweet from his personal handle on July 23 last year about Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj and worshipper of Goddess Bhawani.

According to Twitter, the blue verified badge on Twitter lets people know that an account of public interest is authentic. To be verified, an account must be notable, authentic, and active.

The Vice President's account, it said, has been inactive since July 2020.

"As explained in the Twitter verification policy, Twitter may remove the blue verified badge and verified status if the account becomes inactive. The verified badge has now been restored," Twitter said in a statement.

Explaining how Twitter determines account inactivity, the social networking site said inactivity is based on logging in. "To keep the account active, the account holder must make sure to log in at least every six months."