Samajwadi Party is getting reduced to just a group of uncouth trolls

The conception of ‘discourse ethics’ in the political landscape was aimed at strengthening the moral judgments of the political class in the society. The western idea has been encapsulated in various ancient Vedic texts as well, the most prominent being the Arthashastra of Chanakya. But, the land of Vedas in the contemporary times has been reduced to illogical public blabbering and vague accusations.

The irony of the matter can be illustrated from the recent reprimand issued by Vice President Dhankar, calling the legislators to mend their behavior on the floor of the House. The proceedings of the House breach to new low, with each passing day with ruckus in the Parliament becoming the new normal. Further, the social media platforms have become a new battle ground for political clashes and the political discourse is becoming a facsimile of unparliamentary altercations.

Samajwadi Party crossing all limits of decency

The political discourse especially on mainstream media platforms are taking the shape of meme material with spokesperson of various parties resorting to vague blabbering in their endeavor to ridicule their opponents. Furthermore, the social media accounts of various political parties have kicked in the discourse battle to accuse the opposition parties and their leaders with deriding remarks.

The language illustrated in the social media handle of Samajwadi Party is becoming synonymous to foul play, with words like unparliamentary words like ‘dalal’, ‘baudam’, ‘gardabh’ ‘Pattalchatte’ and ‘Gobar’ being involved for political discourse. The party that was once synonymous to socialism has not been malformed to social media travesty.

Further recently, the Samajwadi party has been named thrice within a month in various complaints filed against the party at various police stations for defaming the ruling party BJP and its leaders. The exemplified height of shame can be witnessed as the party made explicit call thumping the BJP folks to beware of the verbal altercations that were to come their way. In the sheer aggressive tweet of November 25 opined by the Samajwadi Party’s media wing, which alleged, “BJP people, listen up and take note! SP currently only has one formula, “Shathe Shathyam Samacharet” which is designed at destroying the opponent. The tone of the media cell took belligerent and ferocious twist after the aforementioned tweet crossing all lines of public morality and decency.

The wrath of the refurbished attitude fell on the BJP leaders, first amongst who was BJP’s spokesperson for Uttar Pradesh, Rakesh Tripathi, who has approached the MP/MLA court against the media cell of the Samajwadi Party (SP) as a consequence. Tripathi has alleged that the Twitter handle of Samajwadi Party @MediaCellSP, frequently resorts to “indecent” language against BJP leaders and their kin. He asserted “I have lodged a case in the MP/MLA court against SP misusing its Twitter handle. Through its Twitter handle, the party used foul language against me and my family. They have viciously attacked other BJP leaders as well.”

Additionally, in another complaint, Pramod Kumar Pandey, an attorney with the Lucknow High Court, claimed to have likewise asked Twitter to restrict the official handle of the SP’s media cell on December 4.

Notably, the police had detained former News Nation journalist Anil Yadav on November 23 after the initial FIR had been filed, alleging his involvement in the allegedly inflammatory tweets. The journalist was only released on November 30 after spending five days in detention, despite both SP and the journalist denying any involvement. However, he had earlier made headlines for his claim that News Nation had given reporters orders not to criticize the BJP and to add racial undertones to stories.

In addition, on various counts the social media handle in its ridiculing satire mocked the BJP, its leaders and made objectionable claims against the mother organization of BJP, i.e., RSS.

Samajwadi Party distances itself from the Hypocrite Twitter Handle

On the other hand, the Samajwadi Party has taken a naïve stance on the matter as the leaders of the party are distancing itself from the impersonal tweets of the social media handle. Most of the office bearers of the party often allege that even they are unaware as to who is running the social media handle and making ridiculous comments at almost anyone and everyone. The Newslaundry spoke to several spokespersons of the party regarding the issue and their insincere opinion is enthralling. Party spokesperson Abbas Haider said, “He is not aware of it” and distanced from the attitude of the social media handle run by the party. Similarly, Ghanshyam Tiwari says, “We do not consider this as an official handle. We don’t know much about it.” Further, Samajwadi Party’s chief spokesperson Rajendra Chowdhary opined, “They don’t know who runs this Twitter handle.” Another spokesperson of the party, Udayveer Singh, says, “Neither do I know that handle nor do I pay attention to it.”

Thus, the reaction of the official spokesperson of the party depicts that even the party members are not ready to own the ‘new low’ at which the party has stopped, in order to gain limelight in the political discourse of the nation. Samajwadi Party, which has lost its political significance in the political pitch of its home turf of Uttar Pradesh, has devised this strategy to make inroads in the minds of the citizens through vague and illogical statements and tweets. The defensive stance and hypocritical attitude of the leaders and spokesperson however, exposes the radical and propagandist approach of the party.

The worst part being, the party that had been conceptualized by ‘Dhartputra Mulayam Singh Yadav’ for the upliftment of the downtrodden and underprivileged section of society has been reduced to ‘a tool of mocking the opponents’ in the Akhilesh era. The entire political might of the party can be said to be misguided towards targeting the BJP rather than taking up the issues of the citizens.