On Monday night, hours before the counting began for the Telangana Assembly elections, K.T. Rama Rao changed his profile picture on Twitter. The #NewProfilePic showed a a younger looking KTR in a blue shirt with rolled up sleeves, without the wear and tear of campaigning, taking aim with what looked like a rifle.
Hours later, when the counting began and the breadth and sweep of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi win in Telangana became apparent, Twitterati dug the photograph. Later in the day, KTR tweeted another image banging a drum with a simpler message: “Grateful, indebted & humbled. Thanks Telangana for keeping the faith in KCR Garu & giving us another opportunity to serve you (sic).”
But others were not so lucky. People who backed Opposition parties and psephologists predicted a different outcome on their social media timeline had to do a bit of fire fighting, or rather, a clean up job. “Belief is such a thing. The deletion spree of FB messages is on. I know at least 10 people who have deleted all their status messages posted in the last 2-3 days,” wrote Rakesh Reddy Dubbudu of National Campaign for People’s Right to Information, who tracked the messages.
It was not just deletion of messages on social media. By afternoon, the status messages turned pink and people, who, a few days ago were calculating the odds about victory, joined the didn’t-I-tell-you-TRS-will-win bandwagon.
Not everyone, though, converted to the pink cause. Some had predicted it. But even they were taken aback by the margin of victory. “Wow. Even I did not expect this result. Thanks Chandra Babu Naidu for coming over,” wrote Ravikant Reddy, an entrepreneur.
The TRS victory also brought out bands of young men carrying pink flags and spraying pink powder on the streets as they converged in Somajiguda near the Chief Minister’s camp office and the TRS headquarters near KBR Park. A slew of selfies followed, while others broadcast happenings on the streets to their followers.
It was not all joy and happiness, as snarky comments about the role played by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu and other Congress leaders littered the timelines of those who savoured the victory of TRS in the youngest State of the Indian union.
And there were more positives of the TRS victory than just one. “One good thing about the Telangana results: It remains Hyderabadi biryani and not Bhagyanagar biryani. #Telangana (sic),” tweeted Sruthisagar Yamunan, referring to the posturing by a BJP legislator to rename the city.
