Bengaluru: The BJP state unit was mocked on social media after it tweeted a meme which suggested that the Jamia firing incident was a “reaction” to the arrest of JNU student Sharjeel Imam. Several Twitter users pointed out that the BJP Karnataka Twitter handle appeared to be taking credit for the Jamia shooter’s actions via the meme.
Soon after the initial reactions started coming in, @BJP4India deleted the tweet from its timeline. The meme itself is a pair of photos with one being that of arrested JNU student Sharjeel Imam captioned “action” and the other being that of Rambhakt Gopal (the Jamia shooter) captioned “reaction”.
Reacting to the incident, twitter user @touchealways wrote, “So BJP Karnataka is officially justifying and backing Rambhakt gopal. Nice.” It was also picked up by popular twitter accounts such as @AisiTaisiDemocracy, who tweeted, “Here, @BJP4India’s Karnataka handle takes responsibility for the Delhi terrorist. Thanks for this honesty” while journalist Rohini Singh asked, “Who is running this account?”
Following the backlash, the state BJP account posted a clarification tweet with the captions changed to “Action by Government” and “Reaction by Anti-Nationals”.
