Trolls supporting Modi call for Sushma Swaraj’s assassination; Minister fights back
In a shocking development, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj faced unprecedented trolling by the supporters of her own party when the BJP’s troll army posted nasty and abusive comments against her on social media.
It has been reported that the right wing workers were not happy with Swaraj over her ministry’s decision to fast-track the passport application process of one interfaith couple, who had alleged harassment by a Lucknow-based passport officer, Vikas Mishra.
It may be recalled here that the MEA had acted swiftly and ordered Mishra’s transfer after receiving complaints from Tanvi Seth and her husband Anas Siddiqui, the interfaith couple. This attracted the anger of the fanatic elements within the BJP, who immediately chose to communalise the issue. They first trolled the minister in her absence as she was on a foreign trip and then launched a concerted campaign to downgrade Swaraj’s Facebook rating, forcing the minister to remove the ‘Reviews’ button from her page.
On Swaraj’s Facebook page, BJP’s troll army posted nasty and abusive comments against the minister while reviewing her page negatively. Such was the campaign that the rating of Swaraj’s page went down from 4.3 (out of 5) star to 1.4 star in just a few hours.
However, far from being fazed by the nasty trolling, Swaraj took to Twitter to not just announce her return but also name and shame her trolls. Her tormentors on Twitter included some, who are followed by high-profile BJP leaders including Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In her tweet, Swaraj even sarcastically wrote that she was ‘honoured with some tweet’ adding that she was sharing them with her followers.
It read, “I was out of India from 17th to 23rd June 2018. I do not know what happened in my absence. However, I am honoured with some tweets. I am sharing them with you. So I have liked them.”
Notable among them was a tweet by one Captain Sarbjit Dhillon from Punjab, who astonishingly mocked Swaraj’s health condition. His tweet, retweeted by Swaraj, read, “She is almost dead woman as she runs on only one kidney (borrowed from someone else) and any time that can stop working.”
Dhillon, many journalists pointed out, had served in the Indian armed forces and was associated with the BJP in Punjab. He was referring to Swaraj’s reported kidney transplant that she underwent in 2016 in Delhi. Another tweet by one Indra Bajpai, a resident of Haridwar, wrote, “Shame on you mam” before asking if her ministry’s decision was an “effect of your Islamic kidney?” Interestingly, Bajpai’s Facebook profile describes her as an ‘artist’ who owns ‘3D Mural Arts.’
The biggest shocker came from a user called Bharat1, who called for the minister’s assassination. Using a morphed photo of the external affairs minister, being portrayed as someone with a soft spot for Pakistan, the user issued a chilling warning. Calling people to assassinate her, Bharat1 wrote, “She will come out in public sometimes- Must finish her ASAP wherever & whosoever spots her.”
Meanwhile, the Congress party tweeted from its official account applauding Swaraj’s decision to call out the ‘heinous trolls of your party.’ “No matter the situation or reason, nothing calls for threats of violence, disrespect & abuse. @SushmaSwaraj ji, we applaud your decision to call out the heinous trolls of your own party,” the Congress party’s tweet said.
Journalist Sagarika Ghose wrote, “Unbelievable. @SushmaSwaraj is a natural-born leader from the Vajpayee @BJP4India which always abided by parliamentary democracy.”
However, some analysts believe that the vicious campaign against Swaraj was created by a design within the top leadership in the BJP, which plans to contest the next year’s Lok Sabha polls using the hardcore Hindutva narrative. This, according to experts, will help Modi hide his failures in governance in the last four years.
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MP: Man dives into dam water for reel shooting, missing
Guna (MP), Nov 17: A 20-year-old man went missing when he jumped into the water in a dam for the shooting of a social media reel in Madhya Pradesh's Guna district on Sunday, police said.
The incident occurred around 5 pm at Gopisagar Dam in Ruthiyai area, some 20 km from the district headquarters, an official said.
Dharnawada police station in-charge Prabhat Katare said Deepesh Lodha handed over his mobile phone to his friend Raj to shoot a reel as he dived into the water near the sluice gate of the reservoir, he said.
Lodha also told his friend that he knew swimming, the police official said.
However, the young man started drowning, prompting his friend to seek the help of the people in the vicinity, the official said.
After being alerted, police informed the State Disaster Emergency Response Force (SDERF), which launched a search to trace Lodha, the official said.
Phool Singh Banjara, a farmer, said his children alerted him that someone was in trouble in the dam. By the time he reached, Lodha was drowning and soon went missing, he said.
