First ‘Anti-Modi Trend’ Shows the Twitter Match is On

Congress is getting down and dirty with #ModiInsultsIndia as the first anti-Modi Twitter trend in the last one year.

In six days from now, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will complete one year in office. But it’s not just the BJP that’s getting ready for fireworks.

Congress has rebooted its social media cell and drawn blood for the first time with #ModiInsultsIndia, a hashtag it seems to have supported with tweets and retweets. It was perhaps the first anti-Modi hashtag in the last one year since he became Prime Minister. At least 1 lakh tweets with the hashtag were generated after Modi addressed the Hindi-speaking community in the South Korean capital.

There was a time when people used to say we don’t know what sins we committed in our past life that we were born in Hindustan. Is this any country, is this any government? We will leave. There was a time when people used to leave, businessmen used to say we can’t do business here.
– Prime Minister Narendra Modi

While Rahul Gandhi himself is not on Twitter, his renewed activism after the Yangon sabbatical is reflected on social media.

The ‘Office of RG’ tweets every event or statement the Congress Vice-President makes. The official Indian National Congress page is retweeting party leaders with renewed aggression. Not surprisingly, #RGwithhomebuyers was among the top trends when the Real Estate Development Bill was referred to the Select Committee. When fuel prices were hiked, #JumlaDiwas and #Gappu were top trends.

The men behind this new-found social media awareness? Congress’ communication in-charge Randeep Surjewala and MP Deepender Hooda. A split IT cell has been established in Delhi, where a young creative team zealously tracks social media. A lot of them are drawn from the Youth Congress, NSUI and other “Congress sympathisers”, Ajay Maken tells The Quint.

We have no dearth of workers or supporters. Problem is we were unable to sensitise them to social media. We were definitely late, but we are catching up.
– Ajay Maken, President, Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee

Modi’s digital army hit back with #ModiIndiasPride, but it simply did not generate the same interest. Despite having entered the arena a little late in the day, Congress is slowly getting the hang of social media warfare.

The big question is, when will Rahul Gandhi himself join Twitter?

There were a lot of discussions about Rahul joining Twitter before the Parliamentary elections, but Rahul would not like others to tweet on his behalf. But we all want him to be on Twitter soon.
– Ajay Maken, President, Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee