BJP faces Twitter backlash over confusing fuel graphic

Picture showing petrol price rises since 2004 depicted current, higher price with a smaller bar

As anger grows among Indians over record fuel prices, the ruling party is getting advice on social media to seek lessons in mathematics and graphic design after it posted a bar-chart graphic that showed fuel prices lower than in prior years.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is facing criticism for not doing enough to cut fuel taxes that account for more than a third of retail petrol and diesel prices, which have soared to record highs this month.

Twitter users yesterday derided Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over the graphic, which showed the price of petrol in New Delhi, the capital, at Rs80.7 (Dh4.07) a litre, while using an arrow showing a drop of 13 per cent, rather than a rise, to compare it to a price of Rs71.4 four years ago.

Titled ‘Truth of Hike’, the graphic included Modi’s picture and used four bars to show petrol price rises since 2004, but represented the current, higher price with a smaller bar.

Twitter users unconvinced

The post was retweeted 2,100 times, attracted 3,200 comments and figured on prime time news shows after it was posted late on Monday, becoming the butt of jokes on social media, with some users questioning how Rs80 could be less than Rs70.

Amit Malviya, the chief of the BJP’s information technology cell, said the graphic was not being interpreted correctly and was aimed only at showing that the 13 per cent increase since 2014 was lower than in previous years.

“It may sound paradoxical, but that is what it is,” Malviya told journalists. Twitter users were unconvinced.