Congress leader M Veerappa Moily on Friday denied posting a tweet suggesting that money plays a role in his party’s choice of election candidates. The tweet, posted on Thursday night, has since been deleted from an unverified Twitter account by his name.

“INC [Indian National Congress] needs to solve money in politics,” a screenshot of the deleted tweet with The News Minute showed. “We can’t afford to have road contractors and their nexus with the state PWD [Public Works Department] minister determines how candidates are selected for the upcoming Assembly elections.”

Both Moily and HC Mahadevappa, Karnataka’s minister for public works, want their sons to contest in the upcoming Assembly elections in the state Karnataka, The News Minute reported.

Moily’s son Harsha also posted the same tweet a few minutes later – that, too, has been deleted. The next day, Moily told PTI it was a “mistake by somebody else”. “That Twitter [handle] is not in my control,” he said. “It’s not appropriate. I’m withdrawing [it].”

He added: “It’s unfortunate. It shouldn’t have come. I haven’t done it. Somebody else has done it. I don’t want to go public on party matters.”

The tweet had tagged the Congress handle and that of its President Rahul Gandhi.

“Neither me nor my dad are on social media,” Harsha Moily told News18. “It’s being handled by a third party. I believe our accounts were hacked, or the message was sent without our approval.”