Sushma Swaraj Trolling: Ram Madhav Comes Out in Support of External Affairs Minister, Says 'Trust Your Leader'

New Delhi, July 6: Ram Madhav, the national general secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), on Friday came out in open defence of his party colleague Sushma Swaraj and denounced the online trolling of the External Affairs Minister. In a piece titled 'Trust Your Leader', written for the Indian Express, Ram Madhav also clarified on transfer of a officer in the passport office at Lucknow over the controversy in connection with passports issued to an interfaith couple.

"Whether External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj was responsible for the transfer of a junior-level officer in the passport office at Lucknow, whether she did so out of a sense of pseudo-secular enthusiasm or whether the officer in question had become a victim of a secular clique — these are important questions, but they are of secondary importance. This is not because they are not serious questions, but because they need proper scrutiny before we arrive at a conclusion," Ram Madhav wrote.

"What is of primary importance is whether the language of obscenity, hate and worse, violence that we employ in our social media conversations is acceptable," he added. Madhav went on to clarify as to why Tanvi Seth, who accused an officer of hurling religious abuses because she married to a Muslim, was issued a new passport despite the fact that she doesn't reside at the address provided by her.

"The new passport rules only ask for the criminal records of applicants to be supplied by the police through its verification reports in two specified columns. In this case, the state police had submitted their report that stated “nil” in the two columns. The police did add two points in handwriting, apart from the proforma columns, in which they stated that the applicant doesn’t live at the address provided in the application. Upon verification, it was found that the address mentioned was the applicant’s permanent address. The passport rules permit that," Madhav explained.

Condemning the trolling, Ram Madhav said the vile abuses hurled at Sushma Swaraj, "a leader who championed the cause of nationalism for over four decades", was unacceptable. "A difference of opinion in these matters is plausible and valid as well. What is not valid is the hounding, the abuse, the death-wishes, the obscenities like calling her Begum Sushma or worse commenting on her health and kidney — or a retired professor asking her husband to beat her up," he wrote.

Madhav stated that the real targets should have been the clerics who insist on writing a different name in the nikahnama. Earlier, Union Ministers Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari and Ram Vilas Paswan condemned the vicious trolling of Swaraj. However, the BJP has so far remained mum on the issue.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jul 06, 2018 01:43 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).