NEW DELHI – India’s Foreign Minister, Sushma Swaraj is under fire as She isnow fighting a lonely online battle against Hindu hardliners viciouslytrolling her. Interestingly, Prime Minister Narendra Modi or the rulingBharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah, haven’t sprung to her defense.
The high profile woman minister appears friendless as except her husband,former Governor Swaraj Kaushal, and two ministers, Rajnath Singh and NitinGadkari, who handle the Home and Transport portfolio respectively, not asingle right-BJP heavyweight has backed her.
Swaraj is being relentlessly abused by right-wing Twitter users after apassport officer in Lucknow was punished for harassing a Muslim-Hinducouple. As passports are handled by Swaraj’s ministry, right wing trollsinstantly targeted her for “victimizing” a Hindu officer to “appease”Muslims.
A troll even advised the minister’s husband, Swaraj Kaushal, “to beat herup and teach her not to do Muslim appeasement”. As threats of violenceagainst her escalated, the feisty minister started a Twitter poll to findout whether people were for or against abusive trolling that she was beingsubjected to for days.
An astounding 43 percent of 124,305 respondents “approved” what the trollswere doing. “As many as 53,451 Twitter users backing the trolls is a deadgiveaway. Such a big number can be mustered only by IT Cell of the BJPwhich, in turn, means that the BJP itself is targeting Swaraj”, UttamSengupta, Consulting Editor of the National Herald newspaper, told AlArabiya English.
Earlier, The Hindu daily reported that when it reached out to BJP IT Cellin-charge, Amit Malviya for comments, there was “no response amid reportsthat many of the accounts posting abusive comments belonged to partysupporters, and were followed by members; and none have tweeted or issuedstatements in her favour.”
According to Sengupta, “the no-holds-barred campaign against Swaraj clearlyenjoys the blessings of Modi as Swaraj was one of the few BJP heavyweightswho opposed the selection of Modi as the BJP’s prime ministerial candidateprior to the 2014 elections – and Modi doesn’t forgive and forget easily.”