BJP’s Frankenstein: Nationalist trolls taking down PM Modi’s own colleagues, one at a time

On June 22, Rishi Bagree—who introduces himself as an ordinary tax payer on Twitter—declared to have unfollowed External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj after trolling her ministry’s decision to fast-track the passport application process of one interfaith couple, who had alleged harassment by a Lucknow-based passport officer, Vikas Mishra. But on Monday he wrote that he has been blocked by the Minister, saying that the handles which “abused SS (Sushma Swaraj) are unknown to us.”

But he is no ordinary troll on Twitter. He is followed by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Textiles Minister Smriti Irani, BJP president Amit Shah and BJP’s IT Cell head Amit Malviya among others.

Last week, a Passport Seva Kendra official, Vikas Mishra, in Lucknow was initially transferred to Gorakhpur after an 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.

However, Swaraj soon came in the line of fire on social media, with thousands of right wingers abusing and threatening the Minister after her ministry’s action against Mishra, who has claimed that he was just doing his duty. It later emerged that Tanvi, the wife, may have been carrying another passport bearing her Muslim name. According to sources, the MEA is now investigating whether Tanvi was in possession of more than one passport.

The feisty minister took the vicious trolling it on the chin and liked some of the tweets, some of which were egregiously abusive and communal in nature.

“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,” reported News18.com, adding that she 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”.

Ironically, when Modi government is silent on online abuse and threats against the Minister, it has triggered outrage on Twitter with many users coming forward to express their solidarity.

“I feel sorry for Sushma Swaraj. She is experiencing a full-on attack by the troll army. This shows that there is no place left in the BJP for any normal people. The brainwashed Bhakts, who are drowned in hatred will not tolerate anyone going against their communal and cattiest agenda. No wonder so many of last remaining decently educated people have left the party recently,” wrote Dhruv Rathi on Facebook.

Journalist Divya Trivedi wrote on Facebook: “Sanghi trolls will bite the hands that fed them as in the case of Sushma Swaraj. At some point, few within the BJP might realise what they have done but it will be too late to stop the hatred and violence unleashed by them. Only consolation is that they too, will go down.”

Wondering over the silence maintained by hyper nationalist TV anchors over death threats to her, another journalist Syed Hassan Kazim posted on Facebook, “No one is trying to find out a terror conspiracy behind the threat to her life. On Twitter, she is retweeting the abuses out of anger as well as frustration. Neither the Prime Minister has said even a single word for her nor any of her Cabinet colleagues. She has already been sidelined by Modi and his government but now she must be feeling left out. The right wing defenders of the Muslim women rights have not even said a single word, there is no Meenakshi Lekhi, Smriti Irani and Nirmala Sitharaman to defend her from the abusers who in past have been sending even rape threats to many female journalists, activists and anyone who questioned this government's communal policies.”

“As far as the silent nationalist lot is concerned, I must say they are filthy scums, their hatred for Muslims has made them worst than the wild beast.”

Pertinently, PM Modi and several ministers in his party are frequently accused of following trolls who bully users in the cyber space. A person followed by Modi and photographed with information and broadcasting minister Smriti Irani had tweeted “a bitch died a dog’s death” on senior journalist Gauri Lankesh’s murder.

Nationalist trolls, many of them backers of PM Modi and the BJP, had even targeted Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh last year, after he had noted with appreciation that a terror attack on Amaranth Yatra pilgrims had drawn condemnation from all sections of Kashmiri society.

His remarks, however, didn’t go down well with certain Twitter users.

“Where was this Kashmiriyat when Kashmiri pandits were being kicked out?” tweeted a self-proclaimed Hindu nationalist Rohit Patnaik.

Another prominent Twitter handle, Anand Ranganathan, attacked Singh for not doing enough for the Valley’s Kashmiri pandits.