Days after Gautam Gambhir’s Twitter spat with National Conference leader Omar Abdullah over latter’s “separate CM for Kashmir” statement, the cricketer-turned-BJP politician said he had been blocked by Peoples Democratic Party’s Mehbooba Mufti on the social networking site after a back and forth on Article 370.
The PDP chief had criticised the BJP over public interest litigation filed in Delhi High Court seeking a direction to ban Jammu and Kashmir politicians Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah and herself from participating in the Lok Sabha election starting April 11 over their statements “against the Indian Constitution”.
“Why waste time in court. Wait for the BJP to scrap Article 370. It will automatically debar us from fighting elections since Indian constitution won’t be applicable to J&K anymore. Na samjho gay tou mit jaouge aye Hindustan walo. Tumhari dastaan tak bhi na hogi dastaano main (If you do not understand, o people of India, you will be erased. You would not have your tales written in history),” Mehbooba Mufti wrote on Twitter on Monday.
Gautam Gambhir then shot back with this tweet: “Yeh Bharat hai. Koi aap jaisa dhabba nahi jo mit jayega (This is India. It’s not a blot like you are which can be erased),” the 37-year-old former opening batsman said.
Mehbooba Mufti reacted 10 hours after Gautam Gambhir’s tweet by commenting on his cricketing career and blocked him. “Hope ur political innings in BJP isnt as abysmal as ur (your) cricket career! (sic),” she said.
“I worry for your mental health. Am used to people trolling but this level of stalking is unhealthy. Id imagine most people sleep at night. Better to since you dont know anything about kashmir . Here blocking you now so u can do the 2 rupee per tweet trolling somewhere else (sic).”
The sparring continued as Gautam Gautam said that her comment “shows the lack of depth in personality”.
“Oh! So you have unblocked my twitter handle! U needed 10 hours to respond to my tweet and come up with such a pedestrian analogy!!! Too slow. It shows the lack of depth in ur personality. No wonder you guys have struggled to solve the issues at hand (sic),” said the cricketer, who has nearly nine million followers on Twitter.
“Most welcome @MehboobaMufti Ma’am, happy to be blocked by a callous individual. By the way, at the time of writing this tweet there are 1,365,386,456 Indians. How will you block them?” he also asked.
She had another tweet ready on Tuesday.
“Cricketers should stick to . Why wade into politics esp when it comes to issues like Kashmir? They have no knowledge about it. Take your aggression to the field and once you re done hang your boots with grace. Disgraceful.”
On April 2, Gambhir got into an argument on Twitter with Omar Abdullah over the National Conference leader’s statement that his party would work towards restoring the post of “prime minister” in Jammu and Kashmir.