Rahul Gandhi Scores Again, And It’s Yet Another Self Goal

The past week has been a tumultuous one for Facebook with the data manipulation and harvesting done by Cambridge Analytica being brought to the forefront. Back home, it was a tough week for the Congress which had to field questions on multiple reports of their collusion with the firm. So, the much celebrated Congress social media team and the yet-again-newly-minted-aggressive-leader, Rahul Gandhi, decided to turn the tables on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and attempted a master level spin. Out of nowhere, they decided to ride the wave of #DeleteFacebook and started the #DeleteNaMoApp campaign.

When #DeleteNaMoApp started trending on Twitter, a lot of BJP supporters and active Twitterati seemed a little taken aback because a significant amount of time had passed since the app was last publicised on Twitter. So, while the Congress proceeded with the understanding that they had a masterstroke in hand which could both deflect attention from the Cambridge Analytica collusion and create a dent in the massive online popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the end result turned out to be quite different.

The Congress campaign actually ended up being a publicity drive for the app and a lot of new Twitter users who had no knowledge of the app started downloading it. In what would be a major embarrassment for the Congress, users shared images of downloading it and by the end of the day, the ratings on the app had also increased. In the parlance which would be palatable to most people, this is what is called a self-goal.

One self-goal could have been enough but it was not to be. Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion, as they say, and it was only expected that the which was Congress spearheading the campaign to delete the Narendra Modi App would have a spotless record on data security. But, the unforgiving place that is Twitter, threw the second salvo at the Congress when the story of its INC App was revealed. The same data security expert from France, who the Congress had quoted to launch their campaign against the NaMo App, revealed that the app which collects membership data for the Congress is not secure, the personal data with it can be easily decoded, and the server for the app is located outside India, in Singapore.

The IT head of BJP, Amit Malviya, also brought out some startling details on the privacy policy of the app which at best can be summed up as a declaration of no privacy! It stated that the Congress party is free to share the data from the app with any like-minded organisation, including consulting firms with the same principles and objectives! How wide this umbrella of like-minded people is and what are the reasonable security measures that the Congress has put in place, is anybody’s guess.

But, fate and the internet are cruel and in the past few days, the Congress party had to bear the brunt of both. Once the concerns about the INC App and the hypocritical stand of the Congress started gaining traction on Twitter, the Congress party was pushed to a corner and did what was equivalent to eating its own words. It deleted its own app from the Google Play Store! So, the campaign which had begun with an appeal to delete the app of Narendra Modi, ended with the Congress deleting its own app. Whether it was an admission of guilt by the Congress or the culmination of a devastating social media strategy can still be debated, but the irony of the moment cannot be lost.

As Union Minister Smriti Irani tweeted, two days and some bombastic tweets later, the Congress had managed to do the exact opposite of what it had started out to do.

The opposite direction of objectives and outcomes of the Congress political strategy, is strangely not limited to the internet. We can see a variation of it playing out in front of us in Karnataka. But, the discussion on that self-goal is for later.

Rahul Gandhi may not have all the answers while facing a live audience but when tweeting, his media team equips him with the best hyperbolic stuff to throw around. And he returned with just that when he tweeted that the NaMo App is secretly recording audios and videos of people and tracking them through their GPS locations. This is Rahul Gandhi in his classic form when he keeps you guessing whether he is being sarcastic, or serious or whether he just believes that the people of this country need to be treated to such banal discourse because that is what they deserve.

By the end of today, self-goal number 3 for the Congress might be on the way. But, hopefully the understanding also dawns that obfuscation of issues and diversionary tactics could massively misfire. And in the age where information is not filtered through friendly cronies in the media, people will see the truth and take clear note of it. And they will also make time to stand, stare and laugh.