Opinion | BJP’s #MainBhiChowkidar is a bold, yet risky campaign

Viju Cherian

With election dates announced, political parties are rolling out their campaign raths. On March 16, Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked his supporters to be a part of the #MainBhiChowkidar (I too am a watchman) social media campaign.

Modi, who often refers to himself as a watchman of the nation (rather than a leader), said that “Everyone who is fighting corruption, dirt, social evils is a Chowkidar.” To further promote the campaign, the Prime Minister himself prefixed ‘Chowkidar’ before his name, and it now reads ‘Chowkidar Narendra Modi’. No sooner did Modi do it, than members of his Cabinet and BJP supporters followed suit. Among senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders and members of his ministry, the last to change her handle was external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj.

The Opposition, mainly the Congress, was quick to counter the campaign with hashtags of its own, such as #ChowkidarChorHai (the watchman is the thief), among others. In a way, BJP’s campaign gives the Opposition, which has been divided, especially after the Pulwama terror attack, a platform to unite and target the BJP. 

Chaiwala to Chowkidar

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Viju Cherian

Opinion Editor|moneycontrol.com

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The BJP’s #MainBhiChowkidar campaign reminds one of how the party used the ‘chaiwala’ comment in 2014 to its advantage. In January 2014, former Union minister and Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar, while dismissing the BJP as the main Opposition and Modi as its PM candidate, said that Modi could serve tea (chai) at the AICC meet. The BJP was quick to convert this snobbish remark into a poll plank and use it to its advantage. The rest, as they say, is history.

When seen with this precedent, the #MainBhiChowkidar campaign appears to be an attempt to blunt the Congress’ #ChowkidarChorHai campaign, where the grand old party has accused Modi of corruption in the Rafale deal, among others.

In this way, the #MainBhiChowkidar campaign is a bold one.

However, a few days after its launch, it seems that the #MainBhiChowkidar campaign has the potential to backfire on the BJP. 

For us or against us

First, by prefixing ‘Chowkidar’ to the name, BJP leaders in many ways are saying that ‘if you support us, do the same’. Many BJP supporters on Twitter have done it as well. However, with almost every allied party leader in the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) refraining from doing it, it dents this campaign. This exposes a lack of co-ordination within the alliance and gives the Opposition a stick to beat the ruling party.

Further, if this campaign were to get aggressive — and this could be the case especially given the usual social media binary of ‘for us or against us’ — users who do not prefix ‘Chowkidar’ could be labelled as those who support corruption, etc.

The choice of Twitter to promote this campaign is a peculiar one, because at about 30-33 million users, Twitter is not the most popular social media platform in India. This is less than 10 per cent of the active Internet users in India — given this, what impact can a Twitter campaign bring about? For starters, it can force traditional media, such as broadcast, print and online to take note, and thereby be discussed. That, however, is a roundabout way. It also reduces a larger impact on the intended result — of seeing a favourable change among the electorate. With counter trends and hashtags such as #ChowkidarChorHai or #ChowkidarHiGunehgar, BJP’s latest campaign does not have the edge. 

Trends to votes

As mentioned earlier, trending hashtags will create a buzz on social media (and to an extent in the mainstream media), but elections are not won on social media. Not long ago, Twiplomacy had come out with an audit which showed that about 60% of Modi’s twitter followers were fake. Modi was not the only Indian leader; Congress President Rahul Gandhi and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had fictitious followers. In a subsequent clean up by Twitter, most of these leaders also lost a lot of followers.

The point is, trends on Twitter and the number of retweets or followers are not an accurate reflection of electorate sentiment. Also, accounts of former BJP IT cell workers, such as Shivam Shankar Singh and others, show how trends can be manipulated.

Another factor that could work against the campaign is that a majority of Indians might not relate with the Hindi word ‘Chowkidar’. This could be a campaign for Hindi-speaking, Internet users who use Twitter—but that’s a very fine slice of a segment of the population.

For more than five years now the BJP has showed that when it comes to social media presence and campaign techniques, the party is way ahead of other political parties. It was the BJP that was setting the narrative and the Congress was playing catch-up. However, the #MainBhiChowkidar campaign can be seen as the BJP going on the defensive — it shows that Gandhi’s constant attacks on Modi and his government have got the BJP on the defensive and that is what has prompted such a campaign.

Election campaigns have just started and along with the heat of dust of the hustings, social media will also see some action.

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