NEW DELHI: External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Tuesday promptly blocked a person who trolled her, the latest in the episode of trolls criticising the minister over the Lucknow passport case controversy.
Some of the trolls have been quite abusive and vicious in the past few days after Ms. Swaraj’s ministry helped a couple who had alleged they were harassed by a passport official in Lucknow recently. On Tuesday, a woman, who claimed to have defended the minister earlier against those who verbally abused her, herself trolled the minister, daring her to “block” her on Twitter.
Ms. Swaraj then “blocked” her. “Yeh good governance dene aaye the (They claimed to have brought in good governance). Yeh lo bhai, achhe din aa gaye hain (The good days have arrived). @SushmaSwaraj ji, I was once a fan and fought against those who abused you, ab aap please, mujhe bhi block kar ke, inaam dijiye. Intezaar rahegaa. (please block and reward me. I will be waiting),” the woman tweeted. In response, Ms Swaraj said: “Intezaar kyon? Lijiye block kr diya (Why wait? I have blocked you).”
The minister had earlier tweeted, “In a democracy difference of opinion is but natural. Pls do criticise but not in foul language. Criticism in decent language is always more effective.” In reply to the minister asking earlier whether people approved of such tweets (a reference to the verbal abuse she received online), a majority (57 percent) did not approve but worryingly, a whopping 43 percent approved.
Meanwhile, after Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh came to Ms. Swaraj’s defence on Monday, it was the turn of another senior Union minister Nitin Gadkari to support Ms. Swaraj. “It is very unfortunate the way Sushma Swaraj ji was trolled and the kind of propaganda being spread against her. I had a discussion with her, but when the decision (to issue the passports) was taken, she was not in the country. She had no connection with it. She was not there at the time. People did not like the words used against her. I think everyone should act more responsibly on the social media. It is very unfortunate,” Mr. Gadkari was quoted by news agencies as saying.
Prasanta Patnaik 
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