BJP, Congress spar over Rahul Gandhi’s Twitter popularity

Rahul’s tweets have been garnering more traction in the number of retweets, reports. (File)

A war of words broke out between the BJP and Congress leaders after a news agency report suggested that “bots” or “web robots” that can produce automated mass retweets were behind Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s rising popularity on Twitter. From the BJP, Union ministers Smriti Irani and Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore pointed to Rahul’s Twitter popularity being allegedly inflated by paid bots; and for the Congress its social media head Divya Spandana denied any hints at money playing a role in the matter and instead called BJP “Bots Janata Party”.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the most popular Indian politician on social media. His personal Twitter account is followed by 35.6 million people. About 3.83 million accounts follow Rahul’s @OfficeOfRG handle. Recent reports had said that even with a tenth of Modi’s followers, Rahul’s tweets have been garnering more traction in the number of retweets. But on Saturday, another report claimed that a number of these retweeters may be bots from outside India, suggesting that the Congress may have paid for it.

On October 15, Rahul had tweeted “Modi ji quick; looks like President Trump needs another hug” along with a screenshot of US President Donald Trump’s tweet on an improved US-Pakistan relationship. It got nearly 30,000 retweets. On Saturday, Asian News International (ANI) reported that at least 10 of these retweets came from handles with “Russian, Kazakh or Indonesian characteristic”, claiming that such handles could be bots or handles that would retweet for money.

Suggesting that Rahul seemed to be more popular in Kazakhstan than in India, Union I&B Minister Irani tweeted “Perhaps @OfficeOfRG planning to sweep polls in Russia, Indonesia & Kazakhstan ??” with a hashtag #RahulWaveInKazakh, making it trend on Twitter in India.

Rathore, MoS for Youth Affairs and Sports, tweeted, “In sports, this would come under ‘Doping’…hey wait! does ‘dope’ remind you of someone.” Rajeev Chandrashekhar, NDA’s Kerala chief, wrote, “Desperate times call for desperate measures?” Responding to Irani’s tweet, that bots could have pushed Rahul’s tweets, Spandana wrote, “Why do we need them when we have you?” She added that the story was “factually wrong” and that it was an attempt to “please the I&B ministry and the Bots Janata Party”.

Later the Congress called the BJP’s attempt to question Rahul’s social media popularity a “diversionary tactic” from the issues raised by the Congress leader online, because BJP did not want to “focus on them”.
“The real issue here is the issues raised by Rahul Gandhi”, party spokesperson RPN Singh told The Indian Express. The issues Singh mentioned included “corruption of Shah-zada”, regarding the allegations against Amit Shah’s son’s business, “the issues of farmers, issue of censorship of a Tamil movie, issue of joblessness in the country”. Singh said these issues were raised by Rahul on Twitter, and “who is tweeting it and retweeting it… those are side issues”.

“The BJP refuses to react, address and clear the air as far as the real issues are concerned which touch every Indian. Someone’s turnover has gone up 16,000 times… the PM, who had said he is the chowkidar, why is the chowkidar silent,” Singh added.

He asked whether BJP can clearly say that none of the PM’s tweets have been retweeted by handles from outside the country. “The real issue is why is every minister jumping on Rahul Gandhi but silent on the questions that he is raising… they are not about Russia or Kazhakhstan but about the issues faced by every Indian. Who is retweeting and not retweeting it is hardly important,” Singh said.