Anantkumar Hegde was sworn-in as the Minister of State for Skill Development in the latest Cabinet reshuffle. He shared his happiness on being appointed as a minister on his Twitter account.
Over the course of six tweets, he thanked the Prime Minister, people from his Uttar Kannada (Karnataka) constituency, BJP president Amit Shah and the party itself.
However, as one scrolls down his Twitter timeline, some of his tweets raise disconcerting questions over his appointment as a minister.
Case 1: Fakery
In the image above, not only is the Minister pushing forward a fake narrative, he seems to have an issue with a man and a woman having a friendly relationship.
A report by ABP News on this issue stated, “We found that the woman in the photograph was not a teacher but a research scholar named Somya Mani Tripathi. The woman had shared the picture on her Facebook profile, in which Kanhaiya and she were sharing a friendly laughter. She had uploaded the pictures on 5 March. Some miscreants took the picture and shared the derogatory post. She later clarified on her Facebook post that she didn’t find laughing with her friend wrong.”
Hegde has tweeted multiple times attacking JNU. He also retweeted a post which said, “Bring in Army and Crush these A**holes”, which refers to students of Ramjas college.
So, we now have a Union Minister who wants to ‘crush’ rebellious students with the help of the army.
Case 2: Views on Islam, Christianity and Buddhism
Here are his views on Ayodhya.
Further, in a press conference, he had stated:
Till the time Islam exists in the world, no one can stop terrorism. If we want to keep a place like Bhatkal peaceful, then we should throw Islam away from this world and we should shut Islam.Anantkumar Hegde
Case 3: Loves The Word “Presstitute”
‘Presstitute’ is a derogatory term which is essentially a combination of the words ‘press’ and ‘prostitute’. The minister uses it routinely on his Twitter timeline.
Photo captions are usually added by editors based on feedback from photographers. Here the minister holds Barkha Dutt responsible for a photo caption while referring to her as ‘presstitute’.
In another tweet, he was found commenting on a fake news report about Dawood Ibrahim being killed and suggesting that “presstitutes and bollywood actresses” would feel tremendous loss.
Why attack only actresses and not actors even if you are livid about Bollywood’s connection with Dawood?
He also wants journalist Rana Ayyub under surveillance for her ‘anti-national’ misdeeds. This tweet came a few days after Rana Ayyub’s book Gujarat Files was released.
Case 4: Indira Gandhi is Maimuna Begum
In this tweet, Mr Hegde refers to Indira Gandhi as Maimuna Begaum, a name that fake news sites like PostCard News often use for Indira Gandhi.
Associating a Muslim name with a political leader is not limited to Indira Gandhi. In another tweet, he refers to Mamta Banerjee as Mumtaz.
Addressing Indira Gandhi as Maimuna Begaum and Mamta Banerjee as Mumtaz is what trolls on Twitter do. Here we have a Union Minister doing the same.
Also, it shows once again his mindset towards Muslims since he thinks that addressing a person with a Muslim name brings down his/her character.
In real life too, Hegde’s career hasn’t been short of controversies. Recently, he was caught on camera thrashing a doctor at a Karnataka hospital, as reported by The News Minute.
It is shocking that a person with so much apparent hate for various religions has been chosen to be a minister in a multi-cultural country like ours.
It is shocking that a man who retweets posts that advocate ‘crushing’ dissenting students and look down upon men and women spending time with each other, is chosen as a minister.
Out of 280 BJP MPs, is this the talent that PM Modi has ‘thoughtfully’ chosen to be the Minister of Skill Development?
(This article was originally published on AltNews. It has been republished with permission.)
(This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
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