Author and veteran Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh leader Ratan Sharda on Wednesday criticised Bharatiya Janata Party publicity chief Amit Malviya for trolling social media users who had expressed their discontent regarding a provision in the Union budget, released a day earlier.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a Hindutva group, is the parent organisation of the BJP.

Sharda has written several books on the Sangh. He also writes a regular column in its mouthpiece Organiser.

After the Union Budget was released on Tuesday, several social media users criticised the National Democratic Alliance government’s decision to do away with indexation in property sales.

Indexation adjusts the purchase price of a property to account for inflation over time and reduces the taxable capital gains on its sale.

Reacting to this, Malviya, in a now-deleted post, said: “Everyone is an indexation specialist tonight.”

Sharda responded to the comment by saying that the “attitude of BJP IT Cell [publicity wing] is a serious problem”.

“Instead of coming up with simplified communication about good points of Budget 2024, he ends up trolling citizens,” wrote Sharda. “Answer their fear, don’t insult them dear Amit Malviya.”

This is at least the second time in less than two months that Sharda, who has been a lifelong member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, has publicly chastised the BJP.

In a column in Organiser on June 8, Sharda wrote: “Results of 2024 General Elections have come as a reality check for overconfident BJP karyakartas and many leaders. They did not realise that Prime Minister Narendra Modiji’s call of 400+ [Lok Sabha seats] was a target for them and a dare for [the Opposition].”

Sharda said that such BJP leaders and workers were “happy in their bubble” and were not “listening to the voices on the streets”.

The article was published a day after Modi took oath as the prime minister for the third time along with a 71-member Council of Ministers.

The BJP won 240 Lok Sabha seats in the general election, a significant dip from its tally of 303 seats in 2019. As it fell short of the majority mark of 272 seats, it had to depend on its coalition partners in the National Democratic Alliance to form the government.