2014: Cyber Politics on a high in India!

2014 has seen the advent of several high profile politicians of India coming to the social media. Shashi Taroor who worked as Union Minister in Previous UPA regime was one of the first Indian politician to join Twitter and later by the end of 2014, most netas were on the micro blogging site. Twitter became an important tool in fighting the recent elections. The impact on the people is so high that many are of the opinion that Twitter influenced the winning and losing margins in several places.

According to Twitter India, during the general elections this year, a total of 56 million election-related tweets were sent out. Modi was mentioned in 11.1 million tweets, or accounted for almost 20% of the total traffic. Arvind Kejriwal was next with 5 million (or 9%) and Rahul Gandhi straggled with just 1.2 million tweets or 2%. While there is also a significant presence of politicians on Facebook, Twitter has the say between both in terms of influencing the electorate. According to recent figures, there are 65 million Facebook users and 16 million Twitter users.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made the best use of social media in promoting himself and his party before the election. They say he very effectively used the social media in influencing the youngsters of the country. In fact social media has totally transformed the way the voting public views politicians and the way news and information is relayed and controlled. It is also not an exaggeration to say BJP used the social media better than Congress and the usage played one vital role in dethroning the Congress.