BJP leader and Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy on Friday took to Twitter to hit out at the "fake news brigade". He added that the BJP, RSS and Swamy himself were being targeted.
"Fake news brigade has gone amuck with foreign Left wing Christian and Muslim owned media abroad. They target BJP Government, RSS, and me in particular for spreading Hindutva," he wrote.
He also cited an example of such fake news that was being mis-attributed to him. "One fake quote is that I had declared Muslims are not equal to Hindus under Art.14," Swamy said.
The allegation can perhaps be traced back to a VICE interview that Swamy game to Isobel Yeung. A clip from the video was published on their YouTube channel on April 1.
Since then it has been shared by many including Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, who wrote on Twitter about the "RSS inspired BJP leadership", drawing a parallel with Nazi Germany and the persecution of Jews.
Coming back to the video, let us take a look at exactly what Swamy had said, and whether his current tweet is indeed accurate. While we will delve into the social media reaction to his post towards the end of this article, it must be mentioned that not everyone agreed with Swamy's latest tweet, and have brought up the VICE interview. Some however have countered that it may be a heavily edited clip, that may have been taken out of context.
"Article 14 guarantees equality of equals," Swamy can be heard saying in the footage. When asked by Yeung whether everyone was 'equal', he added that such was not the case.
"All people are not equal," Swamy clarified.
Yeung's next question, asking whether Muslims deserved equal rights in this context, Swamy explained further. "There's no such thing as equal rights...they are not in an equal category," he said.
Twitter is at present divided over Swamy's tweet. While many have tweeted their support and admiration as the way he has set the misinformers straight, others were quick to remind him of his words.
"You said it to the VICE news correspondent. It's there with video evidence," wrote one Twitter user.
Take a look at some of the Twitter reactions:
