Congressional leader Rahul Gandhi’s Facebook page recorded more than 40% more engagements than Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s from Sept. 25 to Oct. 2, Congress said.
The evaluation of the part is based on data extracted from Facebook analytics, allowing up to five pages to be monitored. It shows 13.9 million interactions with Gandhi’s posts during this period. Engagements include comments, likes, and shares.
The other four pages monitored as part of the exercise include Modi’s, the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP), Congress, and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.
Modi, who is among the five most followed world leaders on social media, has 45.9 million followers compared to Gandhi’s 3.5 million on Facebook. His commitments last week, according to congressional data, were just 8.2 million.
Also read: Congress will hold ‘satyagraha’ in all states to demand justice for the Hathras rape victim
BJP’s official page with 16 million followers had responses from 2.3 million people, compared to 3.6 million in Congress. Congress has 5.6 million followers on Facebook. Gandhi’s followers also grew 3.5% and posted 52 times during this period.
Modi attended important events, addressed the UN general assembly, and posted 11 times between September 25 and October 2.
A congressional official said the key variable is commitment. “… Although Rahul Gandhi has far fewer followers than Narendra Modi, the levels of participation of the former are much higher and include likes, comments, shares, etc.,” the official said on condition of anonymity. “It’s a key indicator of how audiences engage with the content.”
The official added that the increase has coincided with protests against the alleged gang rape and murder of the 19-year-old Dalit woman in Hathras. Gandhi has led Congressional protests from the front. He managed to reunite with the woman’s family along with Priyanka Gandhi on Saturday after they were prevented from doing so the day before.
“I met the family of the Hathras victim and understood their pain,” Gandhi posted on Facebook. “I assured them that we will support them in this difficult time and help them obtain justice. UP [Uttar Pradesh] the government will not be able to do what it wants even if it wants to, because now the whole country is standing up to do justice for the daughter of this country ”. The post had over 450,000 likes as of Monday morning.
Also read: Rahul Gandhi pledges to eliminate controversial farm laws once Congress returns to power in the Center
Gandhi has gone from being a sporadic user of social media to a relentless critic of the government on Twitter and Facebook. He has also published topics such as the Kheti Bachao Yatra that he has directed against the agricultural laws passed in Parliament last month. Gandhi has also posted a series of video conversations with world and Indian opinion leaders to discuss the Covid-19 crisis and its consequences on the country’s economy.
Dilip Cherian, a communications consultant, said there may be three factors for the increase. “The first is what we call the problem factor. The prime minister has not commented on the Hathras issue and participation in it has been very high on Facebook. The second is the “novelty” factor, which works for Rahul, as we had not seen this level of activity before; it tends to appeal to a wider audience. And the third is the ‘anti-system’ aspect, in which people gravitate towards a discourse against the ruling dispensation, “he said. “The prime minister is very consistent in his posts on social media. Perhaps their lack of participation in the issue has caused the increase. “
HT reached out to BJP’s IT cell chief Amit Malviya for comment, but did not immediately receive a response.
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