On Wednesday, at a press conference, the Aam Aadmi Party demanded the removal of Rekha Sharma from the post of chairperson of the National Commission for Women. The demand came in the wake of alleged misogynistic tweets posted from her Twitter handle.
AAP MLA Atishi Marlena demanded in the conference Sharma’s immediate removal from the post, saying that NCW is the institute where women go to seek justice when other avenues are closed to them. In such a scenario, if the chairperson of the institute is posting such objectionable tweets, that reflect her anti-woman views, what can be expected from the institute.
During the conference Atishi Marlena read out several of Sharma’s earlier tweets that included a morphed picture of Jawarharlal Nehru, to bring out the misogynistic nature of her tweets.
Earlier, Rekha Sharma faced the ire of Twitter users who shared her earlier tweets which are being said to be unbecoming of an individual holding the post of NCW chief. Twitter was also flooded with demands for her removal from the post. Sharma, in face of the backlash, deleted several of her tweets while protecting her account to stop further sharing of her earlier tweets.
Rekha Sharma, on Tuesday, met the Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari to discuss rising crime against women and cases of ‘love jihad’. The meeting created a furore on Twitter over her discussion on this controversial topic.
NCW tweeted, “Our Chairperson @sharmarekha met with Shri Bhagat Singh Koshyari, His Excellency, Governor of Maharashtra & discussed issues related to #womensafety in the state including defunct One Stop Centres, molestation & rape of women patients at #COVID centres & rise in love jihad cases.”
After the meeting, her old tweets started resurfacing on Twitter. Twitter users including journalists, fact checkers and lawyers started tweeting screenshots of her old tweets, several of which had been deleted from her account.
In her tweets she purportedly called the Congress president Sonia Gandhi “mentally ill”. Screenshots of her tweets targeting Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru also resurfaced. In one of her tweets she even called Prime Minister Modi “deaf and mute”.
As screenshots of her old tweets started doing the rounds, she defended herself by saying that her account was hacked and locked her profile. “I am going to complain to Twitter India and will reach the person who hacked my account. Not going to leave the perpetrator (sic).” she tweeted.
In another tweet she said that her account was hacked and someone else tweeted against PM Modi. “I was in a flight when this happened. How mischievous people are. Coming from Maharashtra and can understand why it happened.”
Netizens used words like “misogynist”, “sleazy”, “bigot” and demanded her resignation.
Rekha Sharma hails from Chandigarh and prior to assuming charge as NCW chief, she was BJP’s media- in-charge of Haryana. When she joined NCW in 2015, she faced the ire of women’s right groups, who questioned her credentials and said that institute has been reduced to a “political parking lot”.
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