Like the voters of Delhi during the last elections, Twitter users threw up a fractured verdict on Saturday, with the Aam Aadmi Party and the BJP locked in a war of hashtags.
Saturday saw Prime Minister Narendra Modi address a party rally at Ramlila Maidan, for which the party’s official hashtag was #DelhiWithModi that trended at one point during the day.
BJP Sanvad Cell (Delhi) convener Khemchand Sharma said the hashtag immediately trended when the rally began due to coordinated efforts by the cell, volunteers and those from “like-minded organisations”.
“It was flash trending. We had not been trying to promote it for hours, but just as we started using the hashtag, it became a hit,” said Mr. Sharma.
He added that the reaction of social media users to the rally and Mr. Modi’s speech was at par with the online support received during the Lok Sabha election campaign last year. Those using the hashtag posted pictures and videos from the rally, as well as quotes from Mr. Modi’s speech.
With around 4,000 posts around 9 p.m., the BJP hashtag was ahead of the AAP-promoted #DelhiAsksPMModi, which had just over 1,000 posts. The potential reach, which is determined by the number of followers a user has, of the BJP hashtag was 5.66 million as opposed to the AAP hashtag’s 5.54 million.
However, #DelhiAsksPMModi was the top trend almost throughout Saturday, as the total number of tweets using it was more. The hashtag was started by the AAP earlier in the week to question the BJP and Mr. Modi on campaign promises, and had been trending for a couple of days.
On Saturday, Mr. Sharma said BJP volunteers decided to take over #DelhiAsksPMModi with positive questions. “The AAP may have started the trend, but BJP volunteers ended up using it on Saturday,” he said.
That being said, it appeared that a large number of tweets using the hashtag continued to question the Prime Minister and his party. Though the elections have not even been announced yet, Saturday’s rally showed that the contenders are already gearing up for an online battle.
Though BJP’s official hashtag — #DelhiWithModi — trended at one point on Saturday, AAP’s #DelhiAsksPMModi was the top trend nearly all day
