Smriti Irani Comes To The Rescue Of Right-Wing Trolls Followed By PM Modi On Twitter

Union textiles minister, Smriti Irani, on Friday urged Rajya Sabha Chairman to delete the name of a non-parliamentarian from its records.

BCCL

Irani's plea came as a response to a comment made by Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Derek O'Brien claiming that "twenty six Twitter handles that give out rape threats, communal threats are followed by the Prime Minister of India.Two of these handles have been suspended by Twitter".

He also went on to name @Bhak_sala, a right-wing twitter account used by Rahul Raj, and Mahiviram.

O'Brien claimed that some of them were invited to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's house for a social digital party, adding that these were paid handles.

Smriti, however, said the name of the individual should be removed from the Parliamentary records as the individual cannot defend himself in the house.

¡°As the convention of this house, I am beseeching you, kindly expunge the name of an individual as you¡¯ve done on many occasions so the individual who cannot defend himself do so.¡±

This is not the first time the handles Modi follows on Twitter has come under scrutiny.

In July last year, Modi had hosted a group of 150 social media influencers at his official residence, most of them, known abusive rightwing trolls.

The main opposition, Congress had last month accused Modi of being the ¡°first leader in the free world to run an army of trolls¡±.

¡°It is unprecedented that Prime Minister of the country follows, meets and actively encourages such trolls,¡± Congress spokesman Ajoy Kumar had then said.