How Kerala Congress X handle fell into the RT trap

The official account of Kerala Congress on X, @INCKerala, has gained traction in the last one year because of its humorous and incisive posts. However, as the now-deleted Modi-Pope tweet reveals, political parties on social media tread a sharp edge and can anytime fall into the RT trap.

Social media is the sharp edge of a sword on which political parties tread. Slipping could leave them bloodied. Kerala Congress found the hard way on Monday after it had to delete an X post on the meeting between the Pope and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Italy after a massive blowback.

The @INCKerala handle on X is the official Twitter account of the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee and is followed by 1,23,000 people.

The handle wasn’t always in the news. On the contrary, it had very few followers. Only after it took to posting smart takes on political developments, at times bordering on trolling, that it got noticed.

It is the use of memes and witty one-liners by the Kerala Congress handle that is getting it the most traction, at times comparable to the main Indian National Congress handle on X, which has 10 million followers.

Even Congress state handles like INCKarnataka, which has 373.6K followers, isn’t discussed nationally as the much smaller Kerala handle.

On June 17 after the rail accident in West Bengal’s Siliguri, @INCKerala issued a post on X ridiculing Modi 3.0 for giving three ministries to rail minister Ashwini Vaishnaw.

The post had a comic moment from a Malayalam movie starring Maniyanpilla Raju and Mohanlal.

“The man who was not capable of handling one ministry properly is given three ministries by coalition leader Modi. Narendra Modi Loyalty reward points redemption scheme at work!” the post read.

HOW KERALA CONGRESS X HANDLE GAINED TRACTION

The Kerala Congress handle changed its strategy in March last year. Before that, Anil Antony, son of veteran Congress leader AK Antony, was heading the social media team. Anil Antony joined the BJP in April, and a whole new team took over the state unit’s social media campaign.

Kerala Congress Vice-President VT Balram is now heading the party’s state social media cell.

From Kerala-focused posts, it took to highlighting issues of national relevance. The humour and satire clicked.

As the 2024 Lok Sabha election drew closer, the number of posts increased, and so did its followers count.

The number of weekly posts on the INC Kerala handle went up from 68 to 200 between the third week of February and last week, according to SocialBlade, a social media monitoring website.

Between June 2 and June 8, the account gained around 19,400 followers on X.

The number of followers the handle gained in last one month are around 34,420. It grew 35% in past 30 days, according to hypeauditor.com, another social media analytics website.

Since June 16, when the handle shared the now deleted post on PM Modi meeting the Pope, around 2,900 new followers.

According to reports, a 26-member team led by Kozhikode-based Vijay Thottathil is behind the handle. Thottathil calls himself a social media activist.

HOW KERALA CONGRESS HANDLE FELL INTO THE RT TRAP

Retweets (RTs) and engagement are like oxygen for social media handles and influencers.

The Kerala Congress handle is loved by a section of people who share it for its anti-BJP and anti-Modi posts.

Its posts are incisive.

Take, for example, the June 15 post on the NEET row. The handle shared an image of the marksheet of Anitha, a student who killed herself, to reveal the human side of the controversy.

“This is the marks card of Anitha, a Dalit girl from Tamil Nadu’s Ariyalur district who got 1176/1200 (98%) in her 12th standard but committed suicide after her fight against NEET failed after the Supreme Court dismissed her pleas. Today, when you see candidates who failed in Physics and Chemistry score 705/720 in NEET, you realise how unfair and one-sided the system is. Anitha is a martyr in this fight,” the @INCKerala handle said.

However, within two days, the urge to be smart got the better of the social media team.

The overenthusiasm for likes and retweets is what made it lose its balance and get bloodied. It fell into the RT trap.

It started linking even disassociated events to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

On June 14, when PM Modi was in Italy, the handle shared a video of a brawl in the Italian parliament and posted “”War rukwa do papa..!” Italy welcomes Modi.”

It was an allusion to the government’s claims that the PM had spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy for a brief pause in firing to get a safe passage for Indian students stuck in Ukrainian war zones.

Though Foreign Minister S Jaishankar has time and again explained how the students were led out of the war zone by the PMO’s intervention, opposition parties have used memes to discredit that messaging.

The post of June 14 by the Kerala INC handle was a bid to resurrect an old issue that had been trolled to death.

It is the same overenthusiasm for which the @INCKerala handle had to withdraw the Modi-Pope post.

The now-deleted post had a photo of PM Modi greeting the Pope during his visit to Italy for the recent G7 summit. Its cheeky one-liner “Finally, the Pope got a chance to meet God!” received severe backlash.

Kerala BJP general secretary George Kurian said the post was offensive and hurt to religious sentiments, particularly in Kerala, a state where Christianity is the third-largest religion.

A political war ensued, with Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee Vice-President VT Balram defending the post.

The @INCKerala handle doubled down, citing Pope Francis’ statement that it is not heresy to joke about God.

It’s immaterial who wins the war of words, because the damage has been done.

The Kerala Congress handle is falling into a trap that the main INC handle fell into during the 2019 Lok Sabha election.

It fell head over heels for Rahul Gandhi’s “Chowkidar Chor Hai” campaign without analysing how it was being perceived on the ground. In India, respect is earned by paying respect. The tone-deaf social media cell kept amplifying the “chowkidar chor” message and not the NYAY promise. The result of the 2019 Lok Sabha election bears testimony to how badly the messaging was received.

In the 2024 Lok Sabha election, the Congress got its social media game right. Its message resonated with the masses, and it was for everyone to see.

Social media balance is a fine line to tread, as fine a line that distinguishes cockiness from cool.