Swiggy On Religious Controversy: No discrimination between our partners, customers

A Swiggy customer from Hyderabad refused to accept an order after knowing that the delivery guy was a Muslim. This news comes just a few months after Zomato’s food and religion controversy made the headlines.  

On October 21, a Swiggy user placed an order from the app and had specified that the food should be “very less spicy. And, please select Hindu delivery person. All ratings will be based on this.”

Swiggy told Inc42, every order is automatically assigned to delivery executives based on their location, availability, etc. and not based on individual preferences. As an organization, we do not discriminate between our partners and customers on any grounds.

However, the user cancelled the order after he spoke to the delivery guy and figured out that he is a Muslim. The delivery guy then lodged a complaint with the Shalibanda police station in Hyderabad. The delivery person also claimed that customer had explicitly told him that his religion was the reason for cancelling the order.  

Moreover, the customer had also reportedly called Swiggy’s customer care centre and lashed out at the company for not “honouring” his preference and asked for a refund.

The delivery person also brought it to notice that the president of a local political party, Majlis Bachao Tehreek (MBT), Amzadullah Khan, advised him to lodge a complaint with the police for creating a religious divide.

Zomato Has Experienced It All

The incident is very similar to another one Zomato faced in July 2019. At that time, the food aggregator took a firm stand and vehemently opposed the action of its customer, who took to Twitter to complain that he had to cancel his order as the rider assigned to him was a Muslim. Swiggy lashed out by saying, “Food doesn’t have a religion.”

However, while the company garnered praises for defending its delivery person, it also faced backlash. The angry users claimed that Zomato was not respecting their religious practices.

Zomato was subjected to hashtags like #BoycottZomato as well as negative rankings. According to App Annie data, Zomato’s ranking in the “overall” category on Google Play Store fell 10 points from 28 to 38 in one day. Its ranking among other apps also fell to 32 from 25 over July 30 and 31.

The report also noted that on July 31, the company received 8,918 reviews out of which 5,866 were one-star rating, followed by negative reviews. A day before that the company had only received 300 such one-star ratings, which is what the company used to get on a regular basis, the App Annie data suggests. 

Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal put out a tweet saying, “We aren’t sorry to lose any business that comes in the way of our values.”

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