File photo of Mithilesh Kumar Tiwari | Facebook
File photo of Mithilesh Kumar Tiwari | Facebook
Text Size:

New Delhi: Even as the pandemic rages across the country with many losing their loved ones to the virus, Mithilesh Kumar Tiwari, a member of the ruling BJP, passed a highly objectionable comment on the death of CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury’s son Ashish Yechury, who had Covid-19.

Tiwari, a former MLA, is the vice president of the Bihar BJP.

While President Ram Nath Kovind, Vice President Venkaiah Naidu, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi, and many other politicians expressed their condolences on Twitter, Tiwari put out a tweet calling Yechury a ‘Chinese supporter’ and linked this to the outbreak of the coronavirus.

 

National Conference vice president and former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah called out Tiwari, saying: “It takes a special category of ___________ to gloat over the death of a person’s son. You can always rely on someone in the BJP to set the bar so low that a snake wouldn’t be able to slither under it.”

 

Tiwari deleted the offensive tweet following a backlash. Many users of the microblogging site also hit out at the BJP member for his comments calling it “disgusting”.

 

 

Tiwari has over 12,000 followers on Twitter and is followed by Kapil Mishra, Manoj Tiwari and Bhupender Yadav among prominent BJP leaders.

Ashish Yechury, who would have turned 35 years old this summer, died Thursday morning after a two-week battle with the disease. He was working as an editor with a Delhi-based media outlet.



 

Subscribe to our channels on YouTube & Telegram

Why news media is in crisis & How you can fix it

India needs free, fair, non-hyphenated and questioning journalism even more as it faces multiple crises.

But the news media is in a crisis of its own. There have been brutal layoffs and pay-cuts. The best of journalism is shrinking, yielding to crude prime-time spectacle.

ThePrint has the finest young reporters, columnists and editors working for it. Sustaining journalism of this quality needs smart and thinking people like you to pay for it. Whether you live in India or overseas, you can do it here.

Support Our Journalism

Share Your Views

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here