Chandigarh: The BJP Tuesday stoked a controversy by tweeting about Dravidian ideologue E.V. Ramasamy, popularly known as Periyar, on his 46th death anniversary. Taking a dig at the social reformer’s personal life, the saffron party posted a picture of him alongside his wife Maniammai (whom he married at the age of 69 when she was 31) and wrote that a society has to be built without any Posco accused.
“Today is the death anniversary of Maniammai’s father Periyar. Let us support the death penalty for people who sexually assault children and take the pledge that we will create a society without any Posco accused,” the BJP tweeted.
Soon, the tweet garnered huge attention and netizens slammed the saffron party for putting out a vile tweet on Periyar’s personal life. DMK MP Kanimozhi condemned BJP’s tweet by stating that Periyar worked tirelessly to build a society that encourages women’s rights and it is common to receive a comment like this from BJP who are unaware of women’s rights and civilisation.
Looks like the BJP loves digging it’s own grave in TN. You think you will have a cake walk despite such obnoxious tweets that richly goes against popular sentiment of the state?
In that case, get well soon!@BJP4TamilNadu @BJP4India #Periyar pic.twitter.com/0lseJMotcl— G. Sundarrajan (@SundarrajanG) December 24, 2019
The image was tweeted through BJP Tamil Nadu’s official handle and later it was deleted. Again, the state’s official handle retweeted the same content from its IT wing account (TNBJPITWING ), which too was deleted after some time. However, some netizens took a screenshot of the tweet and vented their ire.
Taking to Twitter, DMK leader MK Stalin wrote that BJP could have put some thought before putting out a demeaning post about Periyar and later deleting it. “Have that fear in you. Even after death, Periyar is giving you jitters. Will AIADMK pounce like a Tiger on this issue? or will it hide like an earthworm?” he wrote.
MDMK leader Vaiko said, “The official handle of BJP has put out something which I cannot say out in the open. They should tender a public apology for dishonouring Periyar by a false accusation. I never thought they will stoop this low, they should remove the post immediately,” he said.
Source: Indian Express (IE)