Uttarakhand: Social media new battleground for politicians

DEHRADUN

: On March 28, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was addressing a rally in

Rudrapur

asking people’s support for Ajay Bhatt, the party’s candidate from Nainital-Udhamsingh Nagar constituency, Congress veteran Harish Rawat and other opposition candidates, who are facing off with Bhatt, were busy targeting Modi on Twitter by sharing memes of the central government’s failures.

With only 10 days left for the Lok Sabha elections to commence in Uttarakhand, the war on Twitter is expected to grow only bitter. Social media has become the preferred place for politicians of the state who till even the last assembly polls in 2017, were not using the medium to target and ridicule their opponents.

Among the Twitter-savvy politicians in the state, Harish Rawat is one of the most prolific, having more than 3 lakh followers, almost twice the number that follows chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat.

Ever since his candidature was announced, Rawat has been posting more than 50 tweets per day. Whether posting cartoons against the government or even while targeting his critics either in BJP or within his own party, Rawat has used the micro-blogging site numerous times.

Leaders of the BJP are not very far behind as well. Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, who is contesting from Haridwar, has been leading the charge for the saffron party. Nishank, who has more than 58,000 followers, has been tweeting an average of 180 posts per day ever since his candidature was announced on March 21. These tweets range from ridiculing Rahul Gandhi’s NYAY scheme to re-tweeting Modi’s speeches.