An online petition and Facebook group has been asking subscribers of Tata Indicomm, Reliance and Airtel networks to switch off their mobile phones, landlines and broadband connections for a day, on January 30.

Filmmaker Ranjan Kamath, who circulated the mail β€” and the hundreds who signed the petition β€” are β€œangry” that respected men of Indian industry like Ratan Tata, Anil Ambani and Sunil Mittal, have openly endorsed Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi as a future Prime Minister.

β€œIt came as a shock to many people,” says Kamath, speaking to DNA from Bangalore.

β€œWe had to do something.” Kamath, who has been shooting a film about Gandhi, says he was inspired to pick a simple but effective strategy. The date he chooses is also Gandhi’s death anniversary.

β€œA significant drop in traffic will force them to sit up and take notice,” says the filmmaker.

That might be hard to achieve. Tata Indicomm has about 30-40 million subscribers; Reliance has 63.5million and Airtel about 84 million - a cumulative of about 18 crore subscribers. β€œTo make a pinch on the bottomline, we will need a few hundred million phones to shut off, and that’s somewhat unrealistic,” says Kamath.

Spokespersons for the companies, however, refused to comment on this.