HRD Minister Smriti Irani was at her fiery best in an interview with Barkha Dutt of NDTV, where she alleged media bias and selective outrage against online trolling and abuse of “right-wing women”.
Irani took several jibes at Dutt and her channel, NDTV, for never conducting prime-time debates whenever she was abused and even when there is an attack against a “right-winger”.
“In Kerala, the Left chops and hacks to death a BJP worker, I don’t see much outrage everywhere. From a communications perspective, there is always a question mark that why is it ok to hack to death a right-winger, and there will be no national outrage.”
“Why is it ok for a Dalit girl to be raped and brutally murdered in a Left bastion or a Congress bastion, and none of you will go there and create an outrage?” she remarked.
The actress-turned-politician went on to add that even her children are targeted on social media, but she “didn’t see outrage when someone said – how can an illiterate woman’s daughter win the world Karate championship.”
Irani also had a word of advice for Twitter users who crib about trolling.
“If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen – that’s my personal motto for twitter trolls,” she said.
“I get attacked not only by trolls – which I brush away every day. I get attacked by journalists and the senior leadership. Not on content of policy or a programme but on the fact that I am a woman and how I have come so far. But there is no 9 o’clock or 10 o’clock Buck Stops Here on it,” Smriti said.
Watch the interview below:
She further said, “You have to distinguish when a journalist becomes a troll, or a female leader becomes abusive, is the system balanced enough to then say that this senior politician should not have done it? I from a right-wing perspective have not seen that much. In Kerala, the Left chops and hacks to death a BJP worker, I don’t see much outrage everywhere. From a communications perspective, there is always a question mark that why is it ok to hack to death a right-winger, and there will be no national outrage. Why is it ok for a Dalit girl to be raped and brutally murdered in a Left bastion or a Congress bastion, and none of you will go there and create an outrage?”
On May 23, there was a rather nasty spat between HRD minister Smriti Irani and Congress leader Priyanka Chaturvedi who alleged that she received threats on social media that she should be “raped like Nirbhaya”.
The tweet was a reference to reports last week that Smriti Irani will be given ‘Z’ category security with armed commandos guarding her in view of increased threat perception to her life.
“I didn’t have an altercation, in fact I gave her a new lease of political life by acknowledging (her). I’m happy that I could contribute effectively to somebody’s rise in the Congress,” she said.
(Feature image source: PTI)