As the country braces itself for general elections 2019, the narrative, counter-narratives and ‘mahaul’ setting have already begun.
While BJP had the first movers advantage as far as using social media as an effective tool for political messages is concerned, Congress didn’t take too long to realise that they had to up their game. However, instead of using the platform to connect with its supporters, Congress has often misused this platform to spread ‘fake news’ and false narratives to malign the Bharatiya Janata Party, a party that has, by all standards become the political antidote to Congress.
Congress’ “reinvigorated” social media presence, and Rahul Gandhi’s “coming of age” on social media, have been under scrutiny lately. From campaigns which have backfired, frequent goof ups, to Rahul using bots as virtual steroids to boost his social media influence, we have seen it all.
Congress and its coterie have on several occasions spread fake news and fabricated stories and often been caught in the act. Congress has developed a penchant to hold BJP responsible for anything and everything happening under the deep blue sky. Be it from lying over LPG gas prices, or about Japan withdrawing funding for bullet trains, Congress has not left any stone unturned.
Rahul Gandhi led Congress has been random and sans merit in conjuring up scams by this government and BJP functionaries which have been summarily debunked. In their desperation, they did not even spare Amit Shah, the BJP president, and this time the accusations are even more ludicrous and weak than before.
Shekhar Gupta and his left- propaganda website, The Print, has almost played a pivotal role, helping the so-called ‘liberal cabal’ to bolster the ‘Nehru-Gandhi dynasty’ crusade.
Yet another leftist propaganda website, The Wire has been working hands in gloves with the Congress, helping them to conduct such hollow hitjobs. He had earlier shared The Wire’s comprehensively debunked hit job on Piyush Goyal with some caustic comments without realising his self-goal perhaps. He is no stranger to self-goals too. In fact, not so long ago he had done exactly the same when we at OpIndia has preemptively busted an imminent hitjob against the Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley. After our article, ‘The Wire’ had conceded that “there was not much of a story to pursue after all”, which is why they had dropped the story after receiving a response from Jaitley and his daughter’s firm. Mr Rahul Gandhi had then proceeded to plug the very article where ‘The Wire’ had admitted to no impropriety on the part of Arun Jaitley, in a bid to tarnish his image. We had then also speculated whether Rahul Gandhi actually knew of the imminent hitjob.
In their article, the Congress also mentions the Jay Shah hitjob which was debunked by us comprehensively and the portal responsible for that hitjob is facing a 100 crore defamation suit, in which the court has already mentioned that a prima facie case exists against the portal.
Congress loyalists, in an attempt to belittle PM Modi, has gone to extreme lengths from spreading sensational conspiracies, like the one involving Nirav Modi and the Income Tax department to sharing fake news from an Islamist website to attack the Modi government.
On the anniversary of demonetization, Congress launched a barrage of data from its social media handle, to claim demonetization was a failure.
The Congress party and its allies have been going hammer and tongs against the Modi led government alleging a scam in the purchase of Dassault Rafale jets despite several experts explaining threadbare why no scam exists. In its desperation to prove its point the Congress social media head, Divya Spandan and lawyer and activist Prashant Bhushan kept the ball rolling by furthering this lie on Twitter. In fact, in their rashness to do so, they even resorted to a dubious website ‘IndiaScoops’, which is nothing but a scurvy propaganda site.
Be it political or personal, Congress and its long journalist brigade have mastered the art of storytelling. Not very long back a video, emphasising on the importance of including Yoga in daily life released by PM Modi, had left the left-wing propagandists fluttering in their pants. They laboriously built up a false narrative using an article published by the same dubious website, ‘Indiascoops’, proofing it yet again that deep inside, these ‘journalists’ and politicians are just rumour mongering trolls.
These few incidents are just a lean example giving us a sneak peek into this artfully constructed web which the Congress and its machinery have practised over the years.
As we move towards the 2019 general elections, the method of operation adopted by the Congress is almost identical to that of 2004. While many of us try to dissect these half-baked theories, a Twitter user who goes by the handle ‘@im_saiganesh’, gave us a reminder lesson on how Congress and its ecosystem used a similar method in 2004 to spread canards against Vajpayee led BJP.
Following are a few examples:
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- The Congress and its ecosystem had created a fake ‘Kargil coffin scam’, which had an uncanny similarity to the currently concocted ‘Rafael scam’. The Congress-led Opposition had jumped on the issue and party president Sonia Gandhi led the charge with her “kafan chor” call. This was ironic because the Vajpayee Government was, in fact, trying to do quite the opposite. Previously, the mortal remains of soldiers were transported in a shabby manner in wooden coffins. After the Kargil conflict, the NDA Government purchased better quality aluminium coffins. However, a typographical error led to a miscalculation of costs and soon enough, a mountain was made out of a molehill. So much so that Mr Fernandes was forced to quit his office, even though he was reinstated later.
- The leftist media had spun a false narrative calling Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s dream project, the Golden Quadrilateral (GQ) project, “The great Highway robbery”, showcasing their vicious mindset.
- The Lutyen media had tried hard to portray the BJP government under Atalji’s leadership corrupt by spinning a so-called ‘petrol pump scam’. This baseless scam over-allotment of petrol pumps and LPG agencies was then devised by none other than the Congress and furthered by their admirers.
- A defence bribery scam was contrived to portray the BJP in a bad light. This so-called scam which was concocted fell flat as neither the leftist media nor the Congress had any proof to substantiate their claims.
The ‘liberal’ cabal and their entire ecosystem not only has a habit to peddle fake news but also to indulge in misrepresenting facts, trying to belittle the good things the BJP government has been doing now and even then.
Saiganesh further presented facts showcasing this typical tendency of the leftist media trying to detract the BJP government.
In the current scenario, the way PM Modi’s ‘Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojna’ was called out as being a scam by Congress veteran leader P Chidambaram, who himself is under the scanner for his involvement in various scams, Vajpayee was then targeted for his proposal to expand the metro.
During the Vajpayee era, fake ecosystem told that Kargil war is for politics. Now during Modi era, they say surgical strikes is for politics.
This bogus tactical plan to blame and shame BJP has become a penchant with the Congress and the Lutyen media. In their desperation to regain power, Congress has crossed the line of virtue on innumerable occasions. As the country heads towards the 2019 general elections it would be interesting to see to what level the entire Congress ecosystem would stoop to.
