BJP master of ‘WhatsApp elections’, says Tharoor

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) mastered the art of influencing voters via social media platforms in the Lok Sabha elections and WhatsApp has been their favourite medium simply because of its massive reach, Congress Party leader Shashi Tharoor has said.

In a commentary piece in Channel News Asia yesterday, Tharoor said WhatsApp is the favoured medium because 82% of India’s mobile phone users have downloaded the app, and because it’s targeted to specific people.

“The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is the master of this technique, running an estimated

half-million WhatsApp groups across the country. Its IT cell head, Amit Malviya, declared in March that, ‘The upcoming elections will be fought on the mobile phone ...In a way, you could say they would be WhatsApp elections,’” wrote Tharoor.

“The BJP benefits from vast armies of people, some paid and some volunteers, whose job is to feed the voracious appetites of these WhatsApp groups,” the Congress MP claimed.

A political party, Tharoor stressed, “can create groups defined by their interests, caste, or religious identity, or by a specific issue or cause, and bombard them with messages to reinforce their biases and convince them the party is with them”.

Despite tall claims made by Facebook that it is removing 10 lakh fake accounts a day in India, a recent survey by online startup Social Media Matters and New Delhi-based Institute for Governance, Policies and Politics revealed that one in two Indians receives fake news via Facebook and WhatsApp.

Facebook and WhatsApp are the leading platforms being used to disseminate misinformation. The survey stated that 96% of the sample population received fake news via WhatsApp.

According to Tharoor, “Twitter, the most ‘political’ of social media, has only 30mn active users in India. It is dwarfed by Facebook and WhatsApp, with over 240mn active users each”.

Given parliamentary constituencies of some 2mn people each, Twitter is of little help in political mobilisation.

“Unlike the US, Twitter would be useless for organising a mass rally, or even convening a large public meeting. It cannot be a substitute for conventional campaigning.

“Nonetheless, political parties have been turning to social media extensively this year,” Tharoor wrote.

Media reports last week claimed how political activists and digital marketers are bypassing restrictions on forwards by using counterfeit versions of the popular messaging app and other software tools costing as little as Rs1,000.

WhatsApp said it had sent ‘cease and desist’ letters to companies claiming to offer such services.