New Delhi,
\nRahul Gandhi\u2019s Twitter outreach has played a key role in changing perceptions about him, senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has said urging the party chief to maintain his \u201cunique communication\u201d with the people and to ignore \u201ctrolls and troglodytes\u201d.<\/p>\n
Tharoor, who was recently edged out by Gandhi as the most-followed Congress leader on Twitter, also said social media could prove to be a \u201cgame influencer\u201d in 2019.<\/p>\n
In an interview to PTI, he said the Congress\u2019s counter-narrative to the BJP on social media was \u201cwitty, eye-catching and trendsetting\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven the BJP would do well to now try and take a leaf or two\u201d out of the Congress\u2019s book, the former Union Minister said, while also stressing his party did not seek to define itself on social media in metrics comparable to the BJP.<\/p>\n
Asked if the microblogging site played a key role in helping people get to know the Congress president and changing his image from a reluctant politician to a dedicated leader, the MP from Thiruvananthapuram said, \u201cYes, very much so.\u201d \u201cHis enthusiasm on social media, his wit, energy and sense of humour are all on display. This is a man whose engagement on this platform speaks to a wider engagement with politics. There is no \u2018reluctance\u2019 on display here, only commitment and passion to make a better India,\u201d the 62-year-old leader said.<\/p>\n
But while Tharoor lauded Gandhi for being \u201csharp and incisive on social media\u201d, he said the party chief was also \u201cattentive and involved\u201d with the concerns of the country and that had won him plaudits.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it is his work on the ground that has really made him stand out of late and has carved this dynamic image of Rahul as a constructive and attentive statesman. Personally, as someone who urged him to join Twitter, I\u2019m delighted by his popularity on this medium as well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Gandhi recently notched up a following of 6.79 million as against Tharoor\u2019s just over 6.69 million. However, he is still well behind Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has 42.3 million followers on Twitter.<\/p>\n
Asked what he would advise Gandhi now after having urged him to join Twitter, Tharoor said he would ask him to ignore trolls\u2014those who routinely and vitriolically abuse people with different views\u2014and troglodytes, defined as cave-dwellers or someone being deliberately ignorant or old-fashioned.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would tell him to keep at it, continue to maintain this unique channel of communication with the people of the country and ignore the trolls and troglodytes along the way, since the positives vastly outweigh the negatives on this medium,\u201d Tharoor said.<\/p>\n
Asked if the battle for 2019 polls would be fought online between parties, he said, \u201cI think it (social media) can be a game influencer, but I wouldn\u2019t go beyond that at this stage and concede that it will be the \u2018real\u2019 battleground for 2019…You need various ways of reaching out to the electorate, and social media happens to offer an additional way, not a substitute for any of the traditional means of campaigning.\u201d But the election post 2019 could be a different ball game, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do not think it will necessarily be a game changer on its own in 2019. But if things are going the way they are going, then perhaps the answer may be different in 2024,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Lauding the Congress\u2019s recent social media outreach, Tharoor said the party\u2019s social media team under the \u201cenergetic\u201d leadership of Divya Spandana had done some \u201cterrific work\u201d in the past couple of years to carve out a \u201cunique niche\u201d for the party.<\/p>\n
Spandana also believed that social media could make a \u201chuge impact\u201d in the 2019 polls.<\/p>\n
India\u2019s young were great users of social media and so it would be \u201cvery important\u201d to reach out to that section of the people who use the medium, she told PTI.<\/p>\n
Tharoor conceded that there were negative sides to social media as well, describing the phenomenon of \u201ctrolling\u201d as a clear indication that one could twist what might otherwise have been a very useful means of communication to \u201cnefarious purposes, political purposes and abuse\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New Delhi, Rahul Gandhi\u2019s Twitter outreach has played a key role in changing perceptions about him, senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has said urging the party chief to maintain his \u201cunique communication\u201d with the people and to ignore \u201ctrolls and troglodytes\u201d. Tharoor, who was recently edged out by Gandhi as the most-followed Congress leader on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30273,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[312,315],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-india","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30272"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30274,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30272\/revisions\/30274"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}