Lucknow: A series of objectionable social media posts by a BJP IT cell member about a Varanasi Congress leader has sparked a political row in the prime minister’s constituency, with the latter alleging that she was threatened with rape.
Local Congress and BJP leaders stood by their party colleagues after the fight over posts by the BJP IT cell’s Rajesh Singh about Congress leader Roshni Kushal Jaiswal took a violent turn Sunday.
Jaiswal went with her family to Singh’s house and allegedly thrashed him, saying he had been making objectionable comments about her for some time and had last week threatened to “rape her and get her pregnant” in a now-deleted Facebook post.
BJP supporters launched a four-hour sit-in outside Varanasi’s Lalpur-Pandeypur police station demanding Jaiswal and her husband be arrested.
Varanasi police tried to pacify the protesters who blocked traffic with their bikes but they only called off their protest after Jaiswal’s husband’s arrest.
The incident sparked a political slugfest between the BJP and Congress in Varanasi, a key Lok Sabha constituency from where Prime Minister Narendra Modi won a third term in this year’s parliamentary election.
Sudhir Singh, a member of the BJP’s Kashi unit, told ThePrint that Jaiswal had been putting out objectionable posts about the PM and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. Singh’s posts were aimed at countering her statements, he said.
“She has been writing objectionable posts about the PM and the UP CM for a long time. Singh is a BJP supporter and a member of the party’s IT cell and he would write to counter her statements. If she was agitated with something, she should have given a complaint to the police. How can she barge into someone’s house and thrash him?” he asked.
Jaiswal, who describes herself as a winner of beauty pageants and a state spokesperson of the UP Congress on her X profile, often uses terms like ‘sahab’ (ruler), ‘feku’ (boaster) and ‘wife deserter’ on her X posts but doesn’t take any names.
Congress media panelist Surendra Rajput told ThePrint that Singh had been harassing Jaiswal using objectionable language. “She is an old Congress worker and irrespective of her identity, had this happened with any woman, Congress would have objected to this.”
A member of UP Congress chief Ajay Rai’s team told ThePrint that the Congress was standing with Jaiswal and its Varanasi city president Raghvendra Chaubey and district president were at the spot to support Jaiswal Sunday.
Varanasi police have lodged two FIRs in connection with the violence at Singh’s residence. Singh has been booked under various sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita including breach of peace, criminal intimidation and making sexually coloured remarks. Jaiswal and her husband have been booked under sections for rioting and trespassing. ThePrint has seen both FIRs.
ThePrint tried to reach Jaiswal over the phone but her phone remained switched off. Varanasi police sources said she had gone incommunicado since her husband’s arrest.
Singh told ThePrint his comment about Jaiswal was an angry response to her purported comments about the PM, CM Adityanath and former MP Smriti Irani.
He acknowledged “some misbehaviour” on his part but said the problems could have been resolved.
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Social media war spills to streets
The social media war between Jaiswal and Singh had been brewing for some time.
Jaiswal alleges that Singh — who uses the moniker ‘Saffron Rajesh Singh’ on Facebook and X — had been posting objectionable posts aimed at her for the past four years.
She says Singh’s posts with remarks such as ‘pehle istemaal karo, fir vishwas karo’ (first use and then believe), ‘maal ho hamaar’ (my paramour), ‘fir se pregnant kare ke hoi’ (has to be made pregnant again) were aimed at her.
“He was continuously writing indecent remarks for me, my husband, my father and my family with a short form ‘Rokuja’ (Roshni Kushal Jaiswal). But two days back, he wrote that Roshni Kushal Jaiswal will ‘have to be made pregnant, she will have to be raped and only then she would be silenced’,” she told reporters on Sunday.
“To silence me, he threatened to make me pregnant, against which I have given complaints in the office of the DM and the police commissioner,” she added.
Jaiswal made copies of Singh’s social media posts allegedly targeting her and distributed them in Singh’s neighbourhood in Pandeypur.
Even as the social media war was going on, Jaiswal and her family went to Singh’s house and allegedly slapped him multiple times. A purported video of the incident has gone viral on social media.
हम सभी किसी भी प्रकार की हिंसा के ख़िलाफ़ है।
हमारी कांग्रेस की नेता को खुले आम बलात्कार की धमकी देना वो भी कई कई बार देना तो सबसे बड़ी हिंसा है।
वो हिंसा इस से भी बड़ी हिंसा है जो रोशनी @roshnikushal अपने परिवार के साथ इस लिखित बलात्कारी के साथ कर रही है। pic.twitter.com/MyNVad0s7y— Surendra Rajput (@ssrajputINC) September 15, 2024
In the video, Singh’s wife, Anu Singh, can be seen trying to save him from Jaiswal and her family while Jaiswal can be heard shouting that “he had wanted to rape her”.
Jaiswal made a video of the incident and posted it on her X handle asking women to stand up against rapists and make an example of women empowerment.
“I venture out alone to drop my son to school and tuitions. He can rape me anytime spotting me alone. The way people are coming out to support the victim of the RG Kar rape case after her death… I don’t want people to take out candle light marches after someone rapes me,” Jaiswal told reporters.
“If a rapist is like ‘Saffron Rajesh Singh’ and I happen to know his house in the city of Baba Vishwanath, I must reach his house and tell his mother, wife and daughter about what he is,” she added.
Speaking to ThePrint, Singh said Jaiswal had been posting objectionable comments about the PM. “We were watching all this for five years.”
“She arrived at my house and distributed pamphlets calling me a rapist. Thoda galat hua, dekh liya jata (There was some misbehaviour on my part, we would have sorted it out). She brought goondas,” he claimed.
He added that he was triggered by Jaiswal’s post about Smriti Irani, in which she used a distasteful word to refer to her. “Won’t the blood of a BJP worker boil? I too wrote something. If you were hurt, you could have taken the legal route. Will you become the law and deliver justice?”
Singh, whose X profile says, ‘In the garb of a bhagwadhari (saffron-robed), we have made a lion sit (on the throne), who dares throw a stone in Uttar Pradesh’, said he was an RSS worker and only reacted when “Jaiswal crossed all her limits”.
His X profile has several posts against people such as Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and journalist Ravish Kumar, as well as the Muslim community.
“I am a worker of the BJP. For one mistake, the party won’t distance from me when I have done 99 percent good work. If they desert people like this, no one will work for the party,” he told ThePrint when asked about speculation that the BJP leadership was not vociferously defending him.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
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