#GoBackAmitShah Twitter trend greets BJP President on Chennai visit 

Bharatiya Janata Party President Amit Shah arrived in Chennai on Monday, July 9 to meet with party functionaries in Tamil Nadu ahead of the next general elections. The BJP is struggling with high levels of unpopularity in the southern state—the crucible of Dravidian pride—due to perceptions that it has a pro-Hindi bias at the expense of regional languages, and that it meddles in the state’s affairs by controlling the AIADMK government. The BJP has also been facing Tamil ire after BJP leader H Raja said that statues of rationalist movement founder Periyar would be razed and a Periyar statue was subsequently vandalised in Thirupattur in March this year. Tamilians have also been protesting against the BJP-led central government’s past delay in setting up the Cauvery Water Management Board. The BJP’s ‘popularity’ in the state, in fact, is at an all-time low. It’s candidate in the recent RK Nagar assembly byelection polled less than the NOTA option.

A recent pre-poll survey gave the BJP zero seats in both the Lok Sabha and the Tamil Nadu assembly, whenever the next elections are held. Amit Shah arrived in Chennai today with high hopes of reversing this trend. Tamil Nadu, however—at least on Twitter—has belied his hopes. Tamil Nadu Twitter is giving the BJP President the same message it gave to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on April 12 this year, on the latter’s visit to Chennai. On that day, Tamil Nadu Twitter made #GoBackModi a global trend all through the day. Today, #GoBackAmitShah began trending before the BJP chief even arrived in Chennai. At present, #GoBackAmitShah is trending at number 2 in India.

Here follow a sample of tweets from Tamilians to the BJP President on his visit to Chennai:

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