After facing online abuse, Sushma Swaraj responds with Twitter poll

Mumbai: External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, who is facing a lot of flak on microblogging site Twitter over the issuance of passport to an inter-faith couple who was allegedly harassed over religion by an official, on Saturday started a Twitter poll asking users whether they “approve of” such tweets.

Swaraj marked several tweets by "liking" them on Twitter and tweeted: “Friends : I have liked some tweets. This is happening for the last few days. Do you approve of such tweets ? Please RT”.

The Twitter poll came after her husband and lawyer Swaraj Kaushal shared the screenshot of one of the tweets from his account, where a troll asked him to "beat" the minister when she comes home and "teach her not to do Muslim appeasement".

The author of the said Twitter handle Mukesh Gupta claimed to be an engineer and has IIT Delhi as part of the handle.

The result of the poll initiated by Sushma Swaraj will be clear by Sunday night.  

The foreign minister witnessed a lot of abuses and crude comments over a controversy involving the issuance of passport to an inter-faith couple.

Sushma Swaraj was travelling out of the country when Mohammed Anas Siddiqui and his wife Tanvi Seth, a couple from Noida, had alleged that a passport officer in Lucknow humiliated and harassed them. The couple tweeted to the external affairs minister seeking an intervention in the matter. Following this, the foreign ministry ordered the transfer of the official Vikas Mishra and sent him a show-cause notice. The couple was also given new passports the same day.

A section of social media trolled and abused Swaraj for taking an action against the passport official, saying that he was only doing his duty.

The Congress and several opposition leaders condemned the social media abuse and extended support to the union minister.