Swaraj trolled over passport row
new delhi — External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj was on Sunday trolled and abused on Twitter over a controversy involving the issuance of passport to an interfaith couple.
Last week, a Passport Seva Kendra official, Vikas Mishra, in Lucknow was transferred after the inter-faith couple alleged that he humiliated them when they went to the office with their passport applications.
According to the couple, he asked the husband to convert to Hinduism and pulled up the wife for marrying a Muslim.
The woman, Tanvi Sethi, said her passport application was rejected on the grounds that she had not changed her surname even after 12 years of marriage to a Muslim man.
A section of social media attacked Swaraj and the ministry for taking action against Mishra, claiming that he was just doing his duty.
However, the minister took it on the chin and retweeted some of the tweets that were even abusive and communal in nature.
“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,” she tweeted.
Mishra had said in his defence that he was secular and had told the woman that her ‘nikahnama’ showed her name as Shazia Anas, which should be endorsed in her file.
“For this she refused. If she had consented... we would have sent it to the ‘A’ section for data modification. We have to see which person is taking the passport in what name. There is documentary proof, how can we ignore that. I am secular and I have myself had an intercaste marriage,” he told the media.
Senior officials said that old rules mandated that a marriage certificate be produced in cases of interreligious marriages during the passport application procedure,
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. Congress @INCIndia
though adding that the officer was not right in ill-treating the woman and shouting at her.
— PTI, IANS
The right trolls are so consumed by anti-Muslim hatred and communal poison and the need to foist dogma as doctrine that even the compassionate @ SushmaSwaraj has not been spared burkhadutt @BDUTT
Your response is one of class. Have always admired your political conduct and enjoyed watching your debates. Just ignore the haters. As they say : never fight with pigs. They enjoy it and you get dirty. Krishnan Chidambaram @KrishC9
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. Sushma Swaraj
@SushmaSwaraj
Where does the buck stop ma’am? Why was the passport officer transferred instantly, without a proper enquiry? Why was the couple given new passports instantly, even though there was discrepancy in the names? Who is responsible? Shefali Vaidya @ShefVaidya