Congress’s online campaign more robust in Madhya Pradesh Premium

. INC & BJP in MP use X for campaigning: INC had more presence, 34% posts were videos/photos. INC focused on manifesto & attacking BJP on corruption, BJP on PM Modi & central schemes. Both parties targeted women & caste, INC more on corruption, BJP on religion & “anti-Sanatani” Congress.

Madhya Pradesh has mostly been a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled State since 2003, with the Indian National Congress (INC) forming the government for a brief period between December 2018 to March 2020. As the State goes for elections on November 17 for all 230 assembly seats, social media has become an important platform for campaigning and garnering votes. The purpose of this study by the Lokniti-CSDS is to understand and contrast the kind of posts made in the run-up to the elections by the two major parties and their members.

A total of 24 accounts were monitored, 12 from the BJP and 12 from the INC. These accounts included the handles of senior party leaders, Opposition party members, MLAs, party workers, State official accounts and party supporters. All the posts recorded were from the social media platform, X (formerly known as Twitter). The recorded posts were categorised as positive, negative, neutral, and mixed. The posts were categorised as positive if they were about the accomplishment of the party and negative if it included posts criticising the other party for their shortcomings. Neutral posts included general updates about visits and greetings. The mixed category had posts which were simultaneously commending the party and attacking the other party (Table 1).

Out of the 1,000 posts recorded, 500 were by the INC and 500 were from the BJP. From the posts, it can be observed that the INC had a more robust social media presence in Madhya Pradesh as compared to what was observed by Lokniti in its studies in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. Around 34% of the total posts recorded were videos and 49% were photos.

One of the most active accounts overall was the party’s official State account — @INCMP on X. Out of the total posts made by the account, 42% were negative, 42% were positive, and 15% were neutral. The online campaign of the @BJP4MP seems to be rather subdued and more focused on positive propaganda, which is in stark contrast to its vigorous approach in the States of Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan. The most active informants in the BJP sample in Madhya Pradesh were the Chief Minister’s handle accounting for 33% of posts, senior party leaders (30%) followed by the official party account @BJP4MP (17%) and others. The party appears to be primarily focused on amplifying its schemes and achievements.

The top categories of INC’s positive posts were about the manifesto, public speeches, poll results, and personal image. The positive posts about the manifesto included various schemes and decisions the INC will bring into fruition in the State if it is elected. The manifesto includes healthcare schemes, job opportunities, provisions for education, the Old Pension Scheme, distributing cylinders for ₹500, free 100 units of electricity and so forth. Among the most frequently used slogans by the party were ‘Badhaiye Haath, Fir Kamal Nath’ and ‘Congress Ayegi, Khushali Layegi’(Table 2).

The negative posts by the INC were overwhelmingly about corruption in the State, misgovernance, and about internal strife within the party. The rampant corruption in the State was one of the major criticisms taken up by the INC against BJP. Such posts included allegations about the 50% commission taken by the Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s administration, the Patwari recruitment scam, the midday meal scam, the mahakal lok scam, the sarva shiksha abhiyan scam etc (Table 3).

Hashtags and slogans such as ‘#Shivraj_Ghotalaraj’ and ‘Madhya Pradesh Ne Thana Hai, Jungle Raj Hatana Hai’ widely used by INC party accounts further focused upon the issue of corruption within the State.