Sushma hits back at trolls with a poll
New Delhi: Facing online abuse over a passport row involving an inter- faith couple, external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj has initiated a poll on Twitter asking users whether they “approve” such trolling.
New Delhi, July 1: Facing online abuse over a passport row involving an inter- faith couple, external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj has initiated a poll on Twitter asking users whether they “approve” such trolling.
Till evening, over 110,000 people had taken part in the poll, with 57 per cent respondents backing her and 43 per cent supporting the trolls.
After days of trolling, matters came to a head on Saturday when Ms Swaraj’s husband tweeted a screenshot of a post by a Twitter user who asked him to “beat her up and teach her not to do Muslim appeasement”.
Ms Swaraj, who has been retweeting some of the offensive tweets directed at her over the transfer of passport official Vikas Mishra in Lucknow for allegedly humiliating the inter- faith couple, began a Twitter poll last night asking people whether such trolling was fine.
“Friends : I have liked some tweets. This is happening for the last few days. Do you approve of such tweets? Please RT,” she tweeted.
Ms Swaraj’s husband, who had posted a screenshot of the tweet accusing his wife of appeasing Muslims, today responded to the person who had posted it saying such words had given his family 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,” Kaushal tweeted.
“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,” the eminent lawyer said in his message to the person who had targeted Ms Swaraj in his tweet.
Ms Swaraj had also retweeted some of the tweets of that person.
Friends : I have liked some tweets. This is happening for the last few days. Do you approve of such tweets? Please RT — Sushma Swaraj, Union minister