He may be set to become the president of India’s grand old party with scores of admirers, but a quick glance at the timeline of Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi’s Twitter account clearly shows a sudden rise in his popularity on social media in the last few weeks.
While the Congress has attributed the Gandhi scion’s refreshed avatar for the rise in his number of followers on the micro blogging site, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), citing some news reports, has said that Rahul’s tweets were retweeted through fake profiles and automated bots.
Union Minister Smriti Irani was the first to attack Rahul through a tweet: “Perhaps @OfficeOfRG planning to sweep polls in Russia, Indonesia & Kazakhstan ?? #RahulWaveInKazakh” along with the screenshot of the report claiming that bots were behind Congress leader’s popularity.”
In fact, the report disclosed the account details of several followers based in countries like Russia, Kazakhstan and Indonesia and all of them were inactive handles.
A perusal of Rahul’s timeline revealed that till last month, the number of retweets and likes that his tweets received were in the range of 1,000 to 3,500 but since October, the number has suddenly swelled to around 10,000.
A particular tweet by Rahul mocking Prime Minister Narendra Modi after US President Donald Trump praised Pakistan was retweeted by over 30,000 people and liked by over 21,000.
On Saturday, Rahul again mocked PM Modi asking him not to “demon-etise” Tamil pride by interfering in actor Vijay’s film “Mersal”, which has come under attack from BJP over references to the GST.
Within two hours, the tweet was retweeted by over 10,000 people and liked by close to 20,000 people.
As the Congress and BJP locked horns over the topic, #RahulWaveInKazakh quickly became the top trending topic on twitter with the Twitterati trolling the Gandhi scion.
“The tremors of a highly enriching UC Berkeley trip is now being felt worldwide,” tweeted Anirban Ganguly, Director, Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee Research Foundation.
“Rahul Gandhi’s Social Media Team Is Doing Great Job. He’s All Set To Win Elections In Russia, Indonesia & Kazakhstan,” said a user.
“It All Makes Sense Now… #RahulGandhi’s Idea About Artificial Intelligence Was To Have Bots RT His Lunatic Tweets,” said another.