Rahul Gandhi talks Twitter strategy: Will catch Modi’s faults, won’t disrespect PM’s office

Rahul Gandhi in Banaskantha (Express Photo/Salman Raja)

Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi interacted with Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee’s IT team on the second day of ‘Navsarjan Yatra’ at Banaskantha district’s Ambaji, one of the Shakti peeths.

Encouraging and applauding the social media team members of GPCC, Gujarat election in-charge Ashok Gehlot said, “Such was the success of our vikas pagal hai campaign that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had to come out and say he is vikas and he is Gujarat. Then Rahul Gandhi wrote to me and said we should ask our team members to stop this campaign as the PM’s office has a dignity and we need to respect that.”

Later, Gandhi admitted that he wrote to Gehlot. “I sent an email to him and said that let us catch Narendra Modi’s mistakes, disturb BJP but maintain the respect of PM’s office. When Modi ji was in opposition, he would talk and disrespect the PM. This is the difference between them and us. We will not go beyond a point, but this is the truth that in Gujarat vikas pagal ho gaya hai. Yeh jhooth nahi hai,” he said.

To a question on the reason behind his large Twitter following, Gandhi first quipped, “As I have said , Pidi tweets “, referring to his pet dog. “Whatever I have to say, I discuss with my team members, give some suggestions and after some fine tuning we post it on Twitter,” Gandhi said in a serious note, and added that as for political issues “these are my own views”.

Comparing the social media team of the two parties, Gandhi asked the team members present to look around and said they would only see smiling faces. This, Gandhi claimed, was contrary to BJP meetings where everyone would be sitting seriously, without any smile on their faces. “Priyanka told me that once when she was flying, she saw three-four BJP politicians in the same flight sitting ahead of her. Throughout the one hour, they did not smile for a moment,” Gandhi said.

“The way they (BJP) can spread anger, you (IT cell members) cannot. Even if you give your entire life to it. It is because you are from Congress and they from BJP,” the Gandhi scion said, adding, “Like radio’s fine tuning, Modi fine-tunes the truth.”

Gandhi said the Congress believed in self-introspection and self-improvement and do not blame others unlike the BJP for own faults. “Whose fault was demonetisation and GST? It was Modi’s mistake. But did he even say once that perhaps he committed a little mistake? Reality is everyone commits a mistake, whether it is a politician or a social media worker. But when a mistake is committed, one must accept it and move on. This is the difference between them and us,” he said.

A social media team member asked Gandhi if he did get disturbed by BJP’s negative publicity if his image. To this, Gandhi said, “I know my truth and work as per my truth. No matter how much efforts BJP puts on creating my image, no matter how much money it puts in destroying my image, my truth will not change and will people will see that,” he said.

On corruption in Gujarat, Gandhi said wherever he went, people complained to him about graft. “In Surat, even the smallest of businessman complains about it and Modi says there is no corruption in Gujarat,” Gandhi said.