Smriti mocks Rahul, Rahul counters with Tamil pride
Rasheed Kappan, DH News Service, Bengaluru, Oct 21 2017, 21:55 IST
Twitter exploded with trend warfare on Saturday as Union Minister Smriti Irani mocked Congress Vice-president Rahul Gandhi, triggering a backlash that rode on a Tamil trend over a Vijay film.
Trending top since morning, #RahulWaveInKazakh and #TamiliansVsModi had the twitterati in a comic tizzy, as cinema, politics, economics and the North-South divide battled for eyeballs.
But firing the first salvo was Irani, taking one big swipe at Gandhi over his sudden surge in Twitter popularity. She had retweeted an ANI analytical report that seemed to suggest that most retweets for Gandhi's official handle @OfficeOfRG had a Russian, Kazakh or Indonesian origin.
Quick to grab the analysis, Irani tweeted this pregnant query: “Perhaps @OfficeOfRG planning to sweep polls in Russia, Indonesia & Kazakhstan ??” In seven hours straight, the tweet had garnered 7,700 likes and 4,900 retweets. The political bait was thrown and the scene was set for a classic Twitter war.
In clinical detail, ANI had dissected an October 15 retweet by @OfficeOfRG. That handle used a US President Donald Trump tweet praising American-Pakistani relations to deliver this punch: “Modi ji quick, looks like President Trump needs another hug.” The 30,000 retweets for this remark was what caught everyone's attention.
Stating from reports that Gandhi had recorded a resurgence on social media, Irani was instantly drawn to the ANI report that analysed just why the popularity was soaring: Automated bots were on a mass retweet drive.
For Gandhi's social media team, the top-trending #TamiliansVsModi offered the perfect platform for a counter salvo. Tamil film buffs were in a defiant mood, angered by the Tamilnadu BJP's demand for cutting out a scene against GST in superstar Vijay's latest movie 'Mersal.'
The Rahul tweet was aimed directly at the prime minister: “Mr Modi, Cinema is a deep expression of Tamil culture and language. Don't try to demon-etise Tamil pride by interfering in Mersal.” By late Saturday evening, the tweet had gained 36,000 likes, 17,000 retweets and over 5,500 replies, all set to take the battle to Sunday and beyond.