NEW DELHI: A day after she claimed that there was a “rise in love jihad cases in Maharashtra”, National Commission for Women chief Rekha Sharma continued to find herself in the midst of a controversy over her remarks and some tweets allegedly posted by her from her account from the period prior to her tenure as the commission’s chairperson.
While Sharma was not available for comment on the matter, she first claimed her account was hacked, then locked her profile as outrage grew and posted a tweet to say, “...I have reached out to the platform to investigate some unauthorised tweets made from my account. The investigations are on and I hope some resolution can be found.”
Next she went on to add, “I have protected my tweets since last evening after receiving a message from Twitter that suspicious activity was detected on my account. My profile was also blocked for a while by Twitter.” Netizens dug out her old tweets attributing them to Sharma in which she allegedly made controversial remarks against women and politicians. They went on to demand the resignation of Sharma, using the hashtag #sackrekhasharma.
Times View
The term ‘love jihad’ has often been used to victimise interfaith couples. The NCW chairperson must speak and tweet responsibly on the subject. That’s the least expected from her.
Sharma had on Tuesday met Maharashtra governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari to discuss women safety-related issues in the state. On its official Twitter account, NCW on Tuesday had posted a picture of the commission’s chief meeting the Maharashtra governor and stated that Sharma in her meeting with him “discussed issues related to women safety in the state including defunct One Stop Centres, molestation and rape of women patients at Covid centres and rise in love jihad cases”.