BJP lawmaker Chandan Mitra was slammed on social media for saying those on twitter have "nothing better to do".
BJP leader and columnist Chandan Mitra trended on Twitter for hours today for describing "twitterati" as "people with nothing better to do."
Mr Mitra, a senior journalist and BJP parliamentarian, made the remarks on NDTV's The Buck Stops Here, during a discussion on the government's perceived flip-flop on Pakistan and whether it was heavily influenced by social media.
"BJP policy is not decided by twitterati. I absolutely and categorically state that twitterati does not influence policy. Yes it is a useful sounding board as to how some people with nothing very much better to do express their opinion on various subjects," Mr Mitra said.
Twitter was not amused.
Within minutes, the Rajya Sabha lawmaker was being lacerated in tweets. The BJP's supporters on social media said they felt betrayed and demanded an apology.
The furious tweets forced the party to disown its lawmaker's views. Arvind Gupta, who heads the BJP's IT cell, tweeted his disapproval.A few days ago, another BJP lawmaker, Anuraj Thakur, was trolled for supporting the India-Pakistan cricket series and justifying his views.