Ahmedabad: ‘Official transferred for self-promotion, scaring people’

The campaign, under the hashtag #StopTargetingGujarat, launched on Monday in English, Gujarati and Hindi by the BJP IT Cell has been widely circulated on social media platforms.

The BJP has launched a campaign on social media after the Gujarat government and its leaders came under attack following the High Court order on dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic in the state.

The campaign, under the hashtag #StopTargetingGujarat, launched on Monday in English, Gujarati and Hindi by the BJP IT Cell has been widely circulated on social media platforms.

It targeted Vijay Nehra who was transferred from the post of Ahmedabad municipal commissioner and made commissioner and secretary, rural development, accusing him of indulging in “self promotion” and “scaring people with his fictitious, baseless data” stating cases in Ahmedabad would reach eight lakh by May 31, citing it as among the reasons for his transfer. The other issues it has defended are the criticism on low testing and the “faulty” Dhaman-1 ventilators manufactured by a Rajkot-based company.

BJP IT cell in charge Pankaj Shukla tweeted on Monday that AMC Commissioner Vijay Nehra was transferred because he was “testing more”. Stating three reasons, he said, “Because Vijay Nehra forgot about the problems of the people of Ahmedabad and was only seen on social media busy with his own publicity. He presented the fictitious and baseless data about Ahmedabad getting eight lakh corona cases which only scared the people… because he left Ahmedabad to the mercy of God and went on quarantine, which is why the government took an immediate decision to hand over the job to senior officers.”

BJP Lok Sabha MP from Kheda, Devusinh Chauhan, also tweeted the same on Monday.

Speaking to The Indian Express, Shukla confirmed that the campaign had been launched but said, “I am in a meeting and will get back.”

Nehra said he had seen the posts but refused to comment.

Defending the Rupani government on the issue of religious discrimination while treating Covid-19 positive patients, the campaign says, “Patients are allotted wards by expert doctors according to their symptoms. Patients are treated for corona on the basis of necessity and not religion.”

On Monday, Bhartiya Janta Yuva Morcha Gujarat President Rutvij Patel, tweeted under the same hashtag alleging that “the media has been sold out”, as it has latched on to the issue of private laboratories that were reprimanded (by the state government for not following the guidelines) only to increase their TRPs.

The same was tweeted in a difference of one minute by Deputy Mayor Dinesh Makwana of BJP-ruled Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC).

On Tuesday, Patel deleted his tweet and apologised saying, ‘I did not have any intention of targeting the electronic media…