NEW DELHI: External affairs minister
Sushma Swaraj retweeted a
Congress poll that asked Twitter about her "biggest failure as foreign minister".
Why would she do that? Some background may help answer that question.
The poll, which the Congress posted on Twitter yesterday at 10:50 am, asked:
"Do you think the death of 39 Indians in
Iraq is Sushma Swaraj’s biggest failure as Foreign Minister? Yes or No"
Close to 34,000 people, voted and 76 percent of them voted "No". That is, 76 percent of respondents didn't believe the death of 39 Indians taken hostage in Iraq in 2014 was Swaraj's biggest failure as foreign minister.
Perhaps respondents had some other "failure" in mind and believed that was a graver one than this tragic episode, or perhaps they don't believe she's been a failure at all. It's hard to tell.
However, the responses to the question at hand certainly show Swaraj in a positive light. And very likely, that explains why she retweeted an Opposition poll on her abilities.
The Congress party's social media head Divya Spandana blames the Swaraj poll failure on "bots".
The Congress appears to be heading for a similar 'own goal', to use football parlance, with its
Twitter poll of today.
It asks whether the fact that close to 13 lakh NCC Cadets have been asked to download the NaMo App and share their data, represents "the worst of the Modi govt in terms of safeguarding privacy".
Some 90 minutes into the question being posted, 4,175 people have responded. Of them, 62 percent say "no" and only 38 percent say "yes". This could mean 62 percent either don't believe any alleged wrong data sharing occured, or 62 percent believe worse cases of data sharing have occurred with the NaMo app.
Perhaps it's time for the Congress to change how it frames its poll questions.
Sushma Swaraj
