In recent past, food delivery company Swiggy gave some responses from its official handle whicy has raised eyebrows. Now it has emerged that honchos of its creative team which handles its social media accounts, @webchutney, is Modi-phobic in plain sight. Netizens are up in arms on Boycott Swiggy.
A twitterati Vijay Patel, @vijaygajera, has done some painstaking work in his thread on twitter. He has shown that the chairman of @webchutney, Sidharth Rao, makes no secret of his dislikes on the matter. Patel further peeps into a member of the marketing company’s creative team, Sanket (@iamsexified), and finds an overdose of this hatred.
Example: Sanket tweets/retweets, with a picture of Prime Minister Narendra Modi holding a remote: “Can you see what’s playing on channel number 2002.” This is an obvious reference to the Gujarat riots of 2002 in which Modi was later honourably acquitted. Another take on the same image: PM has muted judiciary.
Another, a PTI newsfeed: PM Narendra Modi announces week-long campaign from August 8 to 15 to free India of garbage. Sanket replies: But then where would the bhakts go.
Now lets come to views of its creative team.
Meet @iamsexified He is creative person at @webchutney
Find his some likes and retweets pic.twitter.com/n7adg5Z7Zl— Vijay Patel (@vijaygajera) December 1, 2020
Sample one more Tweet regarding the ongoing farmers’ agitation, and decide where Swiggy stands on this one. The Tweet by Nirmala Tai 2.0 @Cryptic_Miind reads: Had an argument with my Bhakt friend over farmers’ protest. He said that we are not dependent on farmers for food. We can always order food from Swiggy. He won.
Response to this Tweet from Swiggy @swiggy_in is: Sorry, we can’t refund education.
There are a number of retweets by Sidharth Rao which are offensive. One is of a Pratik Sinha, who runs his hate in the guise of Alt News: “When your phone doesn’t work, you change it. When something in your house breaks, you fix it. When your health deteriorates, you take medicines, let go bad habits (at least you can try). The only thing that doesn’t change is a dysfunctional belief system called religion.” Another retweet by Sidharth reads thus: Kai dinon se koi dharm khatre mein nahin hai. (For many days now, some religion is not in danger).”
Once Vijay Patel brought these tweets out in open on Tuesday, within 24 hours, all these accounts and more, including Swiggy’s own, have gone into protection mode on twitter. But the word is out. And Swiggy would be hurt. For netizens are demanding a boycott of Swiggy.
Swiggy is India’s largest and highest valued online food ordering and delivery platform founded in 2014. It’s based in Bangalore and is operating from 100 Indian cities. It also now has Swiggy stores for general product delivery. Swiggy has received millions of dollars in investment from a China-based company, Meituan-Dianping. It’s valued at over a billion dollars.