WHAT THEY TWEET ABOUT

FARMERS

JOBS

WHAT THIS MEANS

Text: Rishabh Srivastava; Graphic: Sajeev Kumarapuram

Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweets far more than Congress president Rahul Gandhi , but Rahul is now getting more engagement per tweet than Modi. How did this happen? TOI takes a close look at the numbers…Modi tweets about a wide array of issues (diplomacy, announcing new initiatives) while Rahul uses Twitter mostly for political purposes......but, on a per-tweet basis, Rahul gets far more engagement than Modi.After becoming the Congress president, Rahul’s engagement on Twitter has soared and far exceeds that of Modi on a per-tweet basis. So rapid has been this increase that some critics allege that Rahul’s numbers have artificially been inflated in an orchestrated PR campaign. Supporters argue that the upsurge is because Rahul has been talking more pointedly about issues that voters increasingly care about…Rahul’s messaging on Twitter is largely around three things – attacks on PM Modi farmers , and the jobs crisis.Rahul engages in numerous personal attacks, while Modi avoids such posts on Twitter. In his 1,381 tweets since the beginning of 2017, Rahul has mentioned either “Modi” or “prime minister” once in every 13 tweets (104 times in total). In comparison, Modi never talks about Rahul directly. He has mentioned “Gandhi”, “Nehru”, or “Rahul” only 9 times — and each of those tweets were about either Mahatma Gandhi, Maneka Gandhi, or Rahul Kaushik.Tweets about farmers (those that contained the words “farm”, “crop”) were radically different in 2017 and 2018. In 2017, both Rahul and Modi had a similar number of tweets about farmers, and Modi received far more engagement. But in 2018, while Modi had far more tweets about farmers than Rahul, the Congress chief received double the engagement.Rahul talked far more about jobs than Modi, and generally received more engagement.Rahul and Congress are far more adept at using social media in 2018 than they were in 2017. Rahul’s confrontational messaging can easily backfire. Modi and BJP seem to be leaving personal attacks to their supporters. But recent defeats in the Hindi heartland might see their tenor and messaging become far more shrill as we get closer to the general elections next year.