How the social media tide is turning against BJP

There is a wise old saying: “Life is an echo. What you send out, it always gets back to you.” The echo resounds louder in the virtual world indeed. And who knows it better than the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)—which seems to be losing grip over social media after having milked it to the hilt for electoral gains—in the current times!

The influence of social media on the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, according to a Stanford University study—which examined the use of Twitter ahead of the polls, was massive. The study found that the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) had a higher network strength based on clustering than the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance.

While Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh recently cautioned people against forwarding messages received on the social media without verifying their authenticity, party chief Amit Shah has also appealed to BJP cadres to be watchful against “anti-BJP” propaganda. Incidentally, both the appeals came in the aftermath of hashtag: BlockNarendraModi, that top trended twitter following cold-blooded murder of 55-year-old firebrand journalist Gauri Lankesh. The online protest was prompted over the news that one of the twitter users who cheered Lankesh's assassination is followed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi (personal account).

As the social media tide—which the saffron party enjoyed riding for some years—seems turning against the BJP and PM Modi, most of the anti-Modi material appearing on social media happens to be his old tweets and speeches—which were part of BJP’s full-throttle campaign during run-up to 2014-parliamantary elections. Thanks to searchable archives of social media, the “bluff and bluster” has refused to age in the public psyche.

Six days after PM Modi and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe laid the foundation stone in Ahmedabad for the country’s first bullet train, an old video of Modi has emerged on social media. On September 14, he described the Rs 1,10,000 crore, 508 km high-speed rail project as “symbol of new India” but in 2013, he had this to say about his proposed project: “no one is going to use a bullet train. We need it just for the show-off.”

Several hashtags and social media pages have cropped up in the cyber space that have regularly been calling the bluff on PM Modi and BJP over the ever-increasing gulf between BJP’s poll promises and the performance of NDA government. Here’s a slide-show with voice over that questions most of the election-eve fancy catch-phrases used in election rallies and advertisements.

Remember that visibly despondent woman—who would frequently feature in a BJP election ad on TV screens and social media. She would lament how rising prices of all essentials including petrol, had affected her family. Questions are being asked on the social media, as to where that woman has disappeared these days.

Before the parliamentary elections, BJP’s war-cry: Ab ki baar, Modi sarkaar, would usually come with rhyming poll slogans like Bahut hui mahangayi ki maar, Bahut hua naari par vaar, Bahut hua bhrashtachar, Bahut hua gautaalon ka vyopaar. Such slogans are coming handy for the government critics to make sarcastic memes.

Similarly, the mass media campaign of BJP which flooded almost every medium including newspapers, radio and TV besides billboards with imposing advertisements, has also been providing a lot of fodder for catchy political parody songs on the issues ranging from black money and price rise to terrorism and demonetisation.

Foreshadowing India’s largest identity scheme, Aadhaar, Modi, while in opposition, had described it as a “fraud scheme.” But immediately after coming to power, he put Aadhaar on the fast track and made it mandatory for a host of services. This old video—making rounds on social media—shows the remarkable difference between CM Modi and PM Modi.

While the government has been patting its back after the “success” of the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana that set a target of providing 50,000,000 LPG connections to women below the poverty line, many social media users have been questioning the rationale behind withdrawl of the subsidy.

In fact, many social media users have been wondering how Modi would make jokes on former PM and now jokes are being made on him instead.

A confession by a self-proclaimed “confused” Modi bhakt—that surfaced on internet on PM Modi’s official birthday, can be viewed here:

Here're some satirical tweets that mock current dispensation and Modi-bhakts: