Bengaluru: A tweet from Bengaluru South MP Tejasvi Surya has come back to haunt him. The controversial tweet about Arab women from 2015 went viral on Sunday, attracting criticism and flak towards the Parliamentarian.
In the now deleted tweet, the MP had written, “95% of Arab women have never had an orgasm in the last few hundred years! Every mother has produced kids as an act of sex and not love. @Tarek Fatah.”
This tweet was recently picked up by prominent members of the Arab world, including members of royal families, who have already been condemning attacks on Muslims and Islamophobia in India.
Many asked for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to “drop” Surya’s membership of the Parliament. One Twitter user wrote that if he is given the Foreign Ministry, he should avoid travelling to the “Arab lands” as he is not “welcome”.
Pity Ur upbringing @Tejasvi_Surya that respect for women couldn’t be instilled in U despite India having some great female leaders .Please note if someday the govt bestows a foreign ministry to you, avoid travelling to Arab lands. You are not welcome here. This will be remembered pic.twitter.com/KJJlqJL5tR
— Noora AlGhurair (@AlGhurair98) April 19, 2020
Soon, MP Surya deleted the tweet from his profile, even though many BJP supporters pointed out that the Parliamentarian was merely quoting Tareh Fatah, who is known for his anti-Islam comments.
Unfortunately for Surya, however, someone had already archived the tweet, along with the various reactions to it. Responding to Congress member Srivatsa in the thread, Surya explains that the opinion is Tareh Fatah and not his, however, he says that he agrees with the stand.
His deleted Tweet recorded a video
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— ????????? ?????? (@alnassar_kw) April 19, 2020
“I have merely stated what Tarek Fatah said. Having said that, I agree with him that Islamofascism is grave threat to civilisation,” his tweet reads.
While sources close to Surya have argued that the tweet is being “wrongly attributed to him with malicious intent”, others have been going through the MP’s Twitter profile and digging up more Islamophobic tweets.
Another of the MP’s tweet from 2015 reads, “In short: true, terror has no religion. But the terrorist definitely has a religion and in most cases, it’s Islam.”
Surya’s tweets have often been brought up by the Congress party and have accused the BJP of giving tickets to Pragya Singh Thakur, TejasviSurya and other as it helps “popularise their hardline bigoted political profile”. “Today, India stands embarrassed, humiliated,” said the Indian National Congress’ national spokesperson Sanjay Jha.
