Branding the Politician --- How Twitter is fast becoming a tool of Good Governance in India

In India, the most common complaint against politicians is that you get to see them only during election time. In fact, there were many suggestions that the policy makers should be given a shorter tenure so that they are forced to visit their constituencies more often. It has now almost become a fashion for political parties to give election tickets to filmstars, cricketers and glamorous personalities who hardly have any time to listen to the woes of the common masses. Once they are allocated posh bungalows with five star amenities and handsome allowances, it becomes quite convenient for the politicians to forget the very electorate who voted them to power. And, on top of it, there are the numerous scandals which they get embroiled in to make the common masses sad and disappointed on why they sent those rogue elements to the highest seat of power to represent them.

Our present Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, was perhaps the first one who took to social media by storm to connect with his followers and understand their problems and challenges. His ‘Chai Per Charcha’ connect program, which was made viral on social media, is now a legendary case study. Apart from that there were catchy slogans like ‘Abki Bar Modi Sarkar’, ‘Janta Maaf Nahin Karegi’ and ‘Ache Din Aane Wale Hain’ which were made equally viral on social media. The Facebook page ‘I support Narendra Modi’ got about 8 million likes. At the time of going for elections he had 3.5 million Twitter followers while his rival Rahul Gandhi was yet to send a single tweet. Today, our PM boasts of 19.5 million Twitter followers, and the only persons who are ahead of him in India in Twitter popularity are Amitabh Bacchan and Shahrukh Khan, both legendary film superstars.   

But our Modiji did not just stop with running campaigns using Twitter and social media, he has successfully encouraged his cabinet ministers and other elected members of his party to become aggressive on Twitter. A few days back, one of my close friend, Professor Arvind Mishra, shared with me his personal experience. Professor Mishra is a remarkable person, a Guinness book record holder for having taken 140 hours long marathon lecture. Since then, he had been visiting several countries doing TED talks on engineering as well as motivational subjects. Incidentally, he got an invite for a TED talk at NUST Islamabad. He duly applied for a visa to visit Pakistan to give the talk, but his application was unfortunately rejected by the Pakistani Embassy.  During the same time, Anupam Kher’s visa application had also been turned down by Pakistan. Sushma Swaraj, the External Affairs minister, personally intervened to get the visa approval for Mr Kher. Seeing a ray of hope, my friend Arvind sent a tweet to Sushmaji to intervene in his case also. Surprisingly, he got a prompt response from the External Affairs Ministry to come and meet the minister.  After listening to his case, she got in touch with her counterpart in Islamabad and Prof Mishra’s visa was duly processed. In fact, the last time I met him he had all praises for our Minister of External Affairs, the Pakistani High Commissioner and above all – Twitter – the social media tool which helped him to get access to the highest offices in such a facile manner.

The other minister who is also fast becoming a legend for his prompt response on Twitter is Suresh Prabhu, our Railway Minister. He is almost the modern day messiah who promptly responds to distress calls of passengers made on the Twitter handle @RailMinIndia. He had milk arranged for an 18 month old baby when his mother sent a tweet to the Minister for help. He had doctors arranged for an ailing patient who sought his help. He saved a 19 year old girl who was being trafficked from Siliguri to New Delhi. He got the phone recovered for a passenger who had lost it in a railway compartment. He arranged food for a group of hungry students when their train was delayed. He got security guards deployed for a female passenger who was being harassed by her male co-passengers. His good deeds are far too many, growing by each passing day, and clearly visible on the Twitter account. I am sure everyone would really love to have a Minister like this.

The other Ministers in Modiji’s cabinet have also taken to Twitter, willingly or unwillingly, and are making themselves accountable and heard on the social media. Ministers like Smriti Irani, Piyush Goyal, Jayant Sinha, Arun Jaitley and Mahesh Sharma are also quite accessible through Twitter and other social media. Besides being a good Samaritan to my friend, Sushma Swaraj has also won praises for rescuing a girl who was held captive in UAE and getting the passport recovered for an Indian worker who got caught in the conflict zone of Najran without a valid passport. In both the cases, she acted promptly after distress messages were sent to her over Twitter.

 And today, I was pleasantly surprised to read in Economic Times that our Didi from Kolkata, Mamta Bannerjee, has  also become active on Twitter to reach out to the masses and win the votes. Her party All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) has created two hashtag campaigns titled #AITCWinning and #RealBengal. She currently has managed to garner 3,03,000 followers on Twitter. Her party spokesperson, Derek O’Brien seems to be doing better than her – he has got 6,58,000 followers. Not to be outdone, the opposition party in Kolkata, CPM, has also jumped into the fray. However, their leader, Sitaram Yechury, could manage only 21,300 followers. The other challenger in Bengal, BJP, also came out with four hashtag campaigns – #BhaagMamtaBhaag, #BJP4Bengal, #ActofFraud and #TMCSetuGate. Unfortunately, their leader Sidharth Nath Singh could get only 8,614 Twitter followers. Going by the Twitter trends, there is absolutely no doubt about which party is going to sweep the Bengal polls. But our only hope is that these leaders will continue to keep the connect with the masses through Twitter even after the polls are over just as Suresh Prabhu and Sushma Swaraj are doing in an exemplary manner.

And finally, the Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi, who had been resisting Twitter and social media for a long time, took the plunge and joined Twitter. His Twitter handle @OfficeofRG officially commenced from 8th May, 2015. This account has 5,68,000 followers on last count and is growing by the day. And with Prashant Kishore being the most sought after election strategist by all political parties, the importance of Twitter is poised to grow by each day. And it is for us to make the politicians accountable for their actions and make them keep their promises by connecting with them on the social platforms.  

(Disclaimer: The author is a Business Analyst and Digital Marketing Expert and is in no way connected to any political party. The views expressed by him are an outcome of an independent analysis done on usage of social media tools by Politicians).