New Delhi:
Delhi’s new Chief Minister Rekha Gupta’s old posts on social media in which she took swipes at former chief minister Arvind Kejriwal are being cited by her followers as well as critics since Wednesday evening, when the confirmation of her name for the top post came.
While supporters of Ms Gupta, 50, a first-time MLA from the BJP, shared the old posts to mock Mr Kejriwal’s defeat in the Delhi election after the Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) power run of 10 years, the supporters of the AAP chief drew attention to what they described as inappropriate language used by Ms Gupta in attacking her political rival.
BJP supporters have indicated on social media that Ms Gupta’s old posts showed she has been a fierce and consistent critic of Mr Kejriwal and the previous AAP government in Delhi. She used a variety of memes to mock the AAP chief.
YouTuber Tushar Gupta, who runs the policy and politics channel ‘The Atom’, in a post on X said Ms Gupta’s old posts are being regurgitated by “haters” because she took on Mr Kejriwal when the AAP was seen to be popular in the national capital after sweeping the assembly elections twice.
“People are hating on Rekha Gupta, the new Chief Minister of Delhi, picking up her old tweets. They don’t care for the language, they just hate the fact that someone was answering back to Arvind Kejriwal and Co in the language they best understand,” the YouTuber said.
Some AAP supporters shared screenshots of Ms Gupta’s old posts criticising Mr Kejriwal with memes on X (formerly Twitter), which have been deleted.
Trinamool Congress MP Sagarika Ghose was one of the Opposition leaders who posted about Ms Gupta’s old tweets.
“Disturbing reports on social media on Delhi’s new Chief Minister Rekha Gupta’s past abusive language and rowdyism. What a far cry from the hard working and gracious Sheila Dixit and the articulate parliamentarian Sushma Swaraj. But this is the ‘new’ BJP where vicious abuse and vitriol have been normalised,” Ms Ghose alleged.
The X user, Nyaksha, responded to the Trinamool MP, “The dynamic language was rightly used against corrupt ministers. And with that intent, it still sounds better than ‘hamba hamba, bamba bamba, khamba khamba.”
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee made the “humba humba” comment in February 2021 aimed at her former colleagues who joined the BJP. The Bengal chief minister made the comments in reference to the clip clops that a bovine animal makes as it walks.
The BJP returned to power in Delhi after 26 years. Some of the first steps it will take include fulfilling key election promises, continuing welfare schemes of the previous AAP government, finding a solution to Delhi’s pollution and infrastructure issues, and cleaning the River Yamuna.
The party won 48 seats in the 70-member assembly, putting a full stop on the AAP’s decade-long Delhi march. The AAP won 22 seats, a catastrophic decline from its strong position five years ago.