New Delhi: As the BJP and its leaders maintained their silence, it is the Congress party that has come out in support of Union external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj after she received a barrage of abuse for transferring an Islamophobic passport officer.
"No matter the situation or reason, nothing calls for threats of violence, disrespect & abuse. Sushma Swaraj ji, we applaud your decision to call out the heinous trolls of your own party," posted the Congress’s official Twitter account.
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.https://t.co/qcB0qemRGZ— Congress (@INCIndia) June 24, 2018
The BJP and all its leaders, meanwhile, decided to stay quiet about the incident.
Swaraj on Sunday used Twitter to highlight the abuse she has been facing for the ministry's action against passport officer Vikas Mishra, who had allegedly humiliated an interfaith couple in Lucknow.
The passport officer was transferred after the couple tagged Swaraj with their complaint. In their tweets, Mohammad Anas Siddiqui and Tanvi Seth had alleged that Mishra had asked the husband to convert to Hinduism and pulled up the wife for marrying a Muslim in front of several others.
The couple's passports were issued a day after they complained to Swaraj on Twitter. The Regional Passport Office in Lucknow shunted Mishra to Gorakhpur the same day.
The union minister on Sunday shared a sample of the tweets she has been receiving since she ordered the transfer of the officer, who had claimed that he was just doing his duty. “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 (sic),” she wrote.
The two tweets that Sushma Swaraj “liked” and retweeted are abusive and communal in nature.
Biased decision #ISupportVikasMishra shame on you mam...is it effect of your islamic kidney??— Indra Bajpai (@bajpai_indra) June 22, 2018
She is almost dead woman as she runs on only one kidney (borrowed from some one else ) and any time that can stop working .— Capt Sarbjit Dhillon (@dhillonsarbjit2) June 22, 2018
@SushmaSwaraj you are doing injustice to honest officer, better if you would have not replaced your kidneys. #IsupportVikasMishra— Youraj Gavate (@angry_boyss) June 21, 2018
@narendramodi if you believe that you became PM by Hindus votes, sack this publicity hungry #visamata @SushmaSwaraj immediately. If you keep cheating Hindus, you will not be PM after 2019 May.— Bala Jna (@BalaJna) June 22, 2018
Earlier @SushmaSwaraj was acting as Visa Mata for the Pakistanis and now she had evolved to Passport Mata for the Muslim comwitjout backing her officers who are just following the process in order to appear secular. Media help such manipulative people to create fake news pic.twitter.com/PNgu4qCJpj— BP (@Bharatp1) June 21, 2018
If u r Muslim, No verification needed is the new Rule by Passport Matah @SushmaSwaraj.This lady has spoilt all Hindus Sentiments by thhis cheap appeasement mentality.Her twitter works only, she never worked.— Anirudh Routray (@anirudharoutray) June 24, 2018
Swaraj also faced nasty backlash on her Facebook page from her own BJP supporters, some of whom even demanded her removal from the union cabinet for being “too secular”.
Such was the campaign that Swaraj had to turn off the review option on her Facebook page. Her page’s rating had gone down from 4.3 star to 1.4 star in just a few hours. According to an estimate, more than 30,000 reviews were posted in a span of just a few hours.
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