‘What hope is there for other women?’ asks Mehbooba Mufti after Sushma Swaraj is trolled online
The Jammu and Kashmir leader said she was ‘horrified’ at the abusive tweets against the Union minister.
Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti said on Sunday she was “horrified” at the “vicious trolling” faced by Union minister Sushma Swaraj on Twitter over the last few days.
“Absolutely outrageous!” Mufti wrote on Twitter. “If our own Minister of External Affairs is not spared, what hope is there for any other woman?”
Horrified by the vicious trolling @SushmaSwaraj ji has been subjected to . Absolutely outrageous! If our own Minister of External Affairs is not spared, what hope is there for any other woman?
— Mehbooba Mufti (@MehboobaMufti) July 1, 2018
On Saturday, Swaraj’s husband Swaraj Kaushal posted the screenshot of a tweet by a user @MG_IITDelhi, who had asked him to “beat her up” when she “comes home tonight”, and to “teacher her not to do Muslim appeasement”. On Sunday, he replied to the user, saying his words had “given us unbearable pain”.
Your words have given us unbearable pain. Just to share with you, my mother died of cancer in 1993. Sushma was an MP and a former Education Minister. She lived in the hospital for a year. She refused to engage a medical attendant and attended on my dying mother personally. /1 https://t.co/b4iwIUx0SA
— Governor Swaraj (@governorswaraj) July 1, 2018
Such was her devotion to the family. As per my father's wish, she lit my father's pyre. We adore her. Please do not use such words for her. We are first generation in law and politics. We pray for nothing more than her life. Pls convey my profound regards to your wife. /2
— Governor Swaraj (@governorswaraj) July 1, 2018
Sushma Swaraj also started a Twitter poll, asking whether users approve of such tweets. Nearly 17 hours after the poll began, over 1.03 lakh users had voted, with 57% saying no.
Friends : I have liked some tweets. This is happening for the last few days. Do you approve of such tweets ? Please RT
— Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) June 30, 2018
On June 24, Sushma Swaraj had “liked” some abusive tweets against her after a regional passport officer in Lucknow was transferred for allegedly harassing an inter-faith couple. The posts were written while Swaraj was on a week-long visit to Europe, and after she returned, she said she felt “honoured” that a few Twitter users had targeted her over the controversy.
Swaraj has liked some more such tweets since then. Several users praised her for her reaction to the tweets. However, some comments linked the practice of abusive trolling on social media with Swaraj’s own party, Bharatiya Janata Party.
“Sushma Swaraj ji, we applaud your decision to call out the heinous trolls of your own party,” Congress had tweeted on June 24.