From Kejriwal’s tweet tirade to silence on PM

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal appears to have tamped down his Twitter tirade against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, an analysis of three years of data from the microblogging site shows, indicating a shift in his social media strategy.

An HT analysis of tweets from the AAP chief’s verified handle @ArvindKejriwal shows he mentioned “Modi” in 255 of his 1,303 posts between May 2016 and February 2017 in either English or Hindi. In these 10 months, Kejriwal’s attacks against Modi peaked on Twitter. On an average, he posted 26 tweets every month during this period mentioning Modi by name. But since April, his tweets have not mentioned the PM by name at all.

The change of strategy appears to coincide with the BJP’s victory in UP and AAP’s defeat in Punjab and Goa earlier this year. Political analysts say the change was a result of the realisation that personal attacks against Modi had probably backfired in these polls.

“If you keep attacking a person who is already popular, people would think you have some kind of an agenda,” said Sanjay Kumar, director of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies.

“That is the image Kejriwal built — busy attacking Modi, reasonably and unreasonably, which gave him bad press.”

So, the party changed tack, replacing aggression against Modi with a “positive campaign” ahead of the Delhi municipal polls in March. Indeed, the AAP’s 2015 Delhi assembly social media campaign was focused more on Kejriwal’s 49-day stint as chief minister in 2013-14 rather than an anti-campaign against Modi.

However, after winning in 2015, Kejriwal upped the ante against Modi on Twitter as his government ran into repeated confrontations with the Centre. Kejriwal’s tweets mentioning Modi reached a peak of 52 in November last year as he attacked the government’s move to junk high-value banknotes.

But the loss in state polls forced a rethink of that aggressive strategy, although a senior AAP leader insisted it was because “Modi’s popularity was on the decline” anyway. “If we continue to target him, he will get a chance to play the victimhood card,” said Saurabh Bharadwaj, party MLA from Greater Kailash.

Kejriwal’s reduced focus on Modi coincides with an overall fall in his Twitter activity. Between January and November 2015, Kejriwal tweeted, on an average, 40 times a month. From December 2015 to February 2017, his frequency increased by three times, averaging 120 tweets a month. But since April, he has posted about 38 tweets a month.

“Many things change in the organisation depending on the feedback,” said Ankit Lal, AAP’s social media strategist. “It is something we as an organisation are doing.”

NEW DELHI:

All tweets

Tweets containing the terms ‘Modi’

200 180 160 140 120 100

80

60

40

20 0Jan Apr Jul 2015

Peak phase 20% of all tweets about Modi Oct Jan Apr Jul 2016 Oct Assembly election results announced Jan Apr Jul 2017 Oct