Given BJP leader and Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy's penchant for rubbing people on the wrong side, it was a matter of time before he would have annoyed someone in the BJP his adopted party.
Nonetheless, eyebrows rose when Swamy accused the party's Information and Technology (IT) cell head Amit Malviya of running a tirade against him by putting out fake tweets.
"The BJP IT cell has gone rogue. Some of its members are putting out fake ID tweets to make personal attacks on me," Swamy tweeted. "If my angered followers make counter personal attacks I cannot be held responsible just as the BJP cannot be held responsible for the rogue IT cell of the party," he said.
When a Twitter user advised him to disregard the pinpricks, Swamy declared the BJP should sack the IT cell members.
"I am ignoring but the BJP must sack them. One Malaviya character is running riot with filth. We are a party of Maryada Purushottam not of Ravan or Dushasan," he tweeted.
In the last few days, Swamy has been talking at cross-purposes with mandarins in his party, especially on JEE-NEET exams, which he wanted should be deferred. āJEE/ NEET exams in the middle of galloping COVID-19 infections, paralysing lockdown, a collapsing economy, a monsoon in bloom, Chinese Dragon gobbling our territory, & āchorsā and murderers in Bollywood is like Jallianwala Bagh where innocent were gunned down,ā he had tweeted on September 4.
The BJP has not exactly been striking the right note by its stand on the exams. In fact, on August 30 "Mann ki Baat" received a record number of "dislikes," supposedly reflecting the outrage among JEE, NEET aspirants who were forced to take the entrance exams.
The ādislikeā trend to which the party is not accustomed to does not appear to be showing any signs of abating. Since it has a direct bearing on PM Modiās popularity ratings, recently managers of BJP websites chose not to provide button of likes and dislikes on the video of Modi's interaction with IPS probationers
