Less than 24 hours after Gujarat BJP unveiled its election campaign, "Hu Vikas Chu, Hu Chu Gujarat", for the upcoming state assembly elections, it was attacked by social media trolls.

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By Friday evening, thousands of people had commented against the campaign. While BJP, through the campaign, tried to link the development with the people of Gujarat, citizens on social media disowned the campaign.

The campaign was trolled using slogans like "Ame Dawood ne pakadvano vaydo karyo hato pan ame hardik ne pakdyo, ha hu vikas chu" (We had promised to arrest Dawood but we arrested Hardik in a sedition case, yes, I am development) and "Jetli Vimal ma kesar ni matra, etli j BJP na raaj ma vikas ni yatra, hu chu vikas" (If you find saffron in Vimal gutkha, you can find development in BJP's rule, I am the development) among others.

The convener of Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) and Hardik Patel's colleague, Dinesh Bambhaniya said, "We immediately started the slogan campaign against BJP's campaign. This caught the people's attention and they started sharing it on social media. In fact, our campaign received more popularity than that of Gujarat BJP."

He added, "Our campaign on "Vikas Gando Thayo Che" has been a hit and BJP floated this campaign against that. I believe BJP is zero on the name of development. BJP has been fooling people for many years but people have come out openly for the first time and talking against BJP."

Gujarat BJP has outsourced the campaign to a social media team which is working under the supervision of Gujarat BJP in-charge Bhupendra Yadav. The slogan "Hu Vikas Chu, Hu Chu Gujarat" has been coined by media consultant Manish Baradia, who was also behind envisaging Prime Minister Narendra Modi's image on the national and international level.

On the other hand, PAAS has an organised setup for its social media campaign which consists of around 18,000 young active volunteers in the social media wing. The activity is being headed by Sagar Savaliya aka Befaam of Ahmedabad, Hill Patidar from Rajkot and Ravi Aadroja from Surat.

SOCIAL MEDIA WAR

  • BJP has outsourced the campaign to a team working under the supervision of Gujarat BJP in-charge Bhupendra Yadav.  
  • PAAS has an organised setup which consists of around 18,000 young volunteers in the social media wing.