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Sushma Swaraj Calls Out Trolls Abusing Her For Stance On Lucknow Interfaith Couple Passport Row

byJinal Bhatt
25th June 2018
3 minute read

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has been hailed a hero several times. The promptness with which she takes cognizance of grievances expressed by Indian citizens on Twitter has earned her much appreciation. However, a recent fiasco involving the passports of an interfaith couple from Lucknow and the events that followed have been detrimental to her superhero image.

What set this in motion was a series of tweets addressed to Sushma Swaraj by one Tanvi Seth and her husband, Mohammad Anas Siddique, from Lucknow. The couple alleged that passport officer Vikas Mishra had denied the renewal of their passports because they were an interfaith couple.

Image Courtesy: Twitter

On Wednesday, Tanvi alleged that Mishra had verbally abused them at the Passport Sewa Kendra in Lucknow’s Ratan Square, only because she had married a Muslim and not changed her name. He allegedly even told her husband that he should convert to Hinduism.

“Aapke saath to masla hai. Aapne Muslim se shaadi ki hai to aapka naam Tanvi Seth kaisai ho sakta hai?“

On Thursday, the very next day after these tweets caught media’s attention, the couple was given their passports, and officer Vikas Mishra was transferred from Lucknow to Gorakhpur.

Mishra denied any communal intention in his act of withholding the couple’s passport, or making any discriminatory statements that Sheth had alleged he made. He told TOI,

“She was showing nikahnama that had her name as ‘Shadia Anas’ but had said on documents that she has not changed her name. Why did she not endorse this on paper? I asked her to endorse her ‘nikah’ name, but she said she did not want to do that, which is when I sent her to the higher official.”

 

The transfer spiked a massive social media outrage against Sushma Swaraj and her department. The Union Minister took to Twitter to share the abuse she received on Twitter for the incident.

Image Source

Swaraj had only just returned from her week-long visit to European nations, and as usual, was prompt in addressing all the hate and abuse directed towards her.

Here are the two tweets that she liked and which shown on her Twitter timeline:

However, these tweets are barely scraping the surface. Twitter was rife with pretty much a campaign, with a hashtag et al, shaming Sushma Swaraj for “trying to appease secular sentiments” without carrying out a proper investigation first.

#IStandWithVikasMishra and #ISupportVikasMishra were seen on Twitter, as people expressed their displeasure in different ways.

Some called for her resignation…

Many ‘Unfollowed’ her on social media…

https://twitter.com/rishibagree/status/1010378654923177985

Many others trolled the Lucknow couple for using a communal tactic to cover up the fact that their passport documentation was not proper, and the Minister for playing along with the charade.

https://twitter.com/anirudharoutray/status/1010695676592656385

Things took a nasty turn when some 30,000 negative reviews flooded Sushma Swaraj’s Facebook page, bringing her ratings from 4.3 stars to a mere 1.4 stars. This forced her to turn off the ‘Review’ feature on the page.

However, the worst was probably the tweets that unflinchingly threatened a Union Minister with assassination.

https://twitter.com/Bharatvanshi211/status/1010857663431729152

Some of the backlash she faced came from her own party people, BJP supporters who criticised her for being ‘too secular’.

It remains to be seen what the minister’s next step to tackle this situation will be. One thing is for sure, the fiasco comes bearing the label, ‘Handle With Care’.

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