Kuldeep Gurjar, 17, refers to himself as an “army lover” and a “Modi lover”. He scoffed when asked what he thinks about the current Congress government in Rajasthan.
“First, you tell me why the Congress deployed 25 lawyers to stop the Ram Temple construction in Ayodhya,” he said.
When asked for a source, he scrolled to a WhatsApp video on his phone. “See this.”
Kuldeep, a resident of Chhayan village in the tribal district of Pratapgarh, is among the ever-growing battalion of voters fed on digital content charged with communal hatred and Islamophobia. He’s one of the consumers of thousands of posts, reels, videos and stickers that populate WhatsApp groups and social media.
He deeply regrets that he doesn’t qualify for voting age, since he’s just two months shy of 18.
“If I was 18, I would have voted for BJP,” he said. He dismissed Rahul Gandhi as a “Muslim”, whereas Narendra Modi works for “rashtriyahit”, national interest.
In Rajasthan, the state BJP runs 38,000 WhatsApp groups, according to the party’s IT cell coordinator Vikas Kumar Sharma. Bikaner alone has 3,924 such groups. The project allegedly began five years ago, just after the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, and is now running full steam ahead, churning out posts and sleek videos to promote the party’s “Hindu-ness” and the Congress’s purported incompetencies.
Newslaundry unpacked this sprawling enterprise, and also spoke to voters to see if it’s working.
First, the data.
The Rajasthan BJP has administratively divided 33 districts – recently increased to 53 – into 44 “organisational districts”. At the state BJP headquarters in Jaipur, IT cell head Vikas Kumar Sharma said they have 43 smartphones at headquarters for each “organisational district”. Messages to these groups are mostly sent from headquarters. For example, Sharma said the smartphone for Churu can send posts to all groups of the district “within an hour”.
“These groups are at the district, assembly constituency, mandal, shakti kendra and booth levels,” Sharma explained. “Once they are formed, we become one of the group administrators and feed content. That way, control is centralised.”
Bikaner alone has 3,942 WhatsApp groups. The BJP also communicates within itself through 1,192 groups comprising only party officebearers, Sharma said.
BJP officebearers said the state unit began forming these groups in the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections
Sharma calculated that around 2,000-2,500 volunteers are part of the BJP’s IT team, which monitors WhatsApp. Creative teams at the national and state level churn out content from Delhi and Jaipur. Each district also has a creative team that chips in with local content.
At the state BJP headquarters in Jaipur, their “WhatsApp chamber” has employed around 10 people. Sharma is in charge of it.
“Our IT cell workers in other districts are providing their services without any charge,” he said.
In terms of followers, the BJP steals a march over the Congress. The Rajasthan BJP has 27 lakh followers on Facebook, nine lakh on X, and 1.71 lakh on Instagram. The state Congress has 10 lakh followers on Facebook, 3.67 lakh on X, and 1.02 lakh on Instagram.
But then again, the state BJP has spent more money on ads on Instagram and Facebook. In the last 30 days ending November 21, it spent Rs 45 lakh on 806 paid promotions on both platforms, according to data accessed by Newslaundry.
Meanwhile, the Congress spent Rs 11.67 lakh on ads for its Facebook page “Rajasthan Mein Congress Phir Se” during the same period.
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This article was originally published in Newslaundry and can be read here.