Twitter is usually a place where people generally get into argument over a variety of issues, though the conflicts mostly arise between people who have different political, religious and ideological preferences.
This time a war of words broke out between noted columnist Shefali Vaidya and a Samajwadi Party spokesperson named Pankhuri Pathak. According to her Twitter bio, Pankhuri is a Media spokesperson of the Samajwadi party who calls herself a follower of Lohia, Ambedkar and Nehru.
The argument between them began over the sitting posture of Akhilesh Yadav and Narendra Modi while they visited religious places. Pankhuri was tying herself up in weak arguments when facts were presented to her. She claimed that Narendra Modi was sitting in ‘namaaz’ pose, whereas she was educated that it was a Buddhist pose only.
The fight got a bit heated, and as a response to a tweet by Shefali, the SP spokesperson retorted by outright bringing in Shefali’s kids as some form of twisted revenge:
https://twitter.com/pankhuripathak/status/839001107414183940
https://twitter.com/pankhuripathak/status/839002327059058690
The SP spokesperson tried to justify her act by claiming that she was “abused” because of being termed a “moron”. To which, Shefali defended her that the term was not abusive, but descriptive:
https://twitter.com/ShefVaidya/status/839002957848936448
Leaving semantics aside, even if Pankhuri was called something more objectionable, it certainly doesn’t warrant or justify Pankhuri’s reaction of bringing in someone’s children in the debate and terming the children “bully”.
This behavior of the spokesperson naturally, irked many people who didn’t hold back in their reactions
https://twitter.com/W0rdsmaster/status/839087125173764096
https://twitter.com/UnSubtleDesi/status/839007925754544128
https://twitter.com/abhishekD27/status/839120043656929282
https://twitter.com/TheAtulMishra/status/839014533469356032
https://twitter.com/shuchikalra/status/839016334541352964
https://twitter.com/rajjorani/status/839088300145008642
Even Shefali Vaidya had strong words against Pankhuri’s behavior:
https://twitter.com/ShefVaidya/status/839085892132294656
It does remain to be seen if any action is taken against the SP spokesperson who has not even attempted to delete her tweets or apologise for her behaviour. In fact, she went ahead and blocked Shefali Vaidya, maybe to avoid the uncomfortable questions she was asking.
Samajwadi Party leaders are not exactly known to be respectful towards women, or for that matter twoards anyone. Spokespersons are usually supposed to be people who provide some respectability to a political party through their augments and conduct, which surely is not the case here.