Subramanian Swamy is not without reason one of the most popular Indian politicians on Twitter. His conspiracy theories and bizarre allegations against everything and everybody under the sun provide a good dose of entertainment to his followers. Baseless at best and reeking of communal hatred, his tweets fall short of being funny.

Swamy is an ardent proponent of Hindutva philosophy. He has served as member of India’s Planning Commission. A five-time MP, he was a Cabinet minister at the Center. In August last year, his one-man Janata Party merged with the BJP.

Swamy recently found himself trending on Twitter when he tweeted: “Remember that Babri Masjid was built by two foreign citizens Babar and Baqi. Foreigners have no right to property except due process.” The BJP distanced itself from the statement.

The Babri Masjid issue is not only contentious but also deadly, as was the case in 1992, when inter-communal riots following the mosque's demolition killed over 2,000 people, mostly Muslims.

There is clearly no need to stoke communal fire again. Swamy and his ilk should refrain from making provocative statements of sectarian nature. On Twitter, many responded to his tweet by asking him about British-era monuments in the country and wondering how he could apply the law retrospectively for the 16th century structure.

Swamy's hatred for Muslims is not new. In a 2011 editorial piece, Swamy wrote about disenfranchisement of those Indian Muslims who do not admit to have Hindu roots. It was this controversial piece because of which the Harvard University fired him from its faculty, calling his views “reprehensible.”

Earlier, he alleged that Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi is not an Indian but an Italian citizen.

His followers are known to keep a record of sorts of abbreviations used by him in his tweets. For example, Sonia Gandhi is VK (VishKanya), Vish means poison, Kanya means girl. Rahul Gandhi is buddhu, which in Hindi means dumb or fool. Arvind Kejriwal is called Shree 420, named after a Bollywood blockbuster featuring a trickster protagonist. Shree is a Hindi honorific and 420 is the section in Indian penal code for fraud.

Despite his not-so-covert prime ministerial ambitions, which nowhere seem close to reality, the danger is not Swamy. The real danger is the huge number of “favorites” and “retweets” that his ludicrous tweets get. Do his followers also keep similar views?

Just like Bollywood's item girls who can boast of thousands of online followers, thanks to their less-than-decent posts and tweets, Swamy too has managed to attract a good fan following by means of his outrageous remarks. Move over Rakhi Sawant, the original item boy of Indian politics has arrived.

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