Invective grows on Twitter as LS polls enter final stage

"Pappu" and "feku" are passe. The string of abuses and invective are not only pouring in on social media but have also grown vicious, especially after Prime Minister Narendra Modi set the cat among the pigeons by calling Rajiv Gandhi "Bhrashtachari No 1 (Corrupt Number 1)".

Congress President Rahul Gandhi, who has faced flak for referring to the PM as "Chowkidar Chor Hai", is no stranger to insults as BJP leader Subramanian Swamy often refers to him as "Buddhu" in his tweets.

But as the grand old party took offence at Modi's jibe targeting Rajiv Gandhi, the BJP supporters started insulting the Congress and its President under hashtags like #RajivGandhiChorHai, #CorruptionKingRajiv, and #RahulKaBaapChorHain.

"Hello RAGA ur father was not only a chor but also a traitor who let Anderson to go back to USA and denied thousands of family, JUSTICE. But don't u worry KARMA is a very big thing and one day it will hit you and your family very hard," wrote one Twitter user.

The Congress on Tuesday even moved the Supreme Court against Modi citing the "Bhrashtachari No 1" comment at a poll rally in Uttar Pradesh last week.

Responding to Congress's charge of degrading the political discourse by spewing venom on its leaders, the Bhartiya Janata Party alleged that the Congress Party made its half-century in abusing PM Modi.

If one Congress leader called the Prime Minister "Namard" (impotent), others even called him "terrorist" ir referred to him as "Muhammad bin Tughluq", the BJP alleged.

Responding to Congress leader Ahmed Patel's tweet that abusing a martyred Prime Minster is the sign of ultimate cowardice, one Twitter user wrote: "Mulle...you all piddis can call the sitting PM " neech, ganja fukne wala, tugluq, aurangzeb, nali ka keera and d list goes on..but the PM cant say the truth about the former PM...#RahulKaBaapChorHain..BTW martyr is one who was killed in action not inaction..."

"Social media discourse has been sub-par for years, and really deteriorated ahead of the current election," leading tech policy and media consultant Prasanto K. Roy told IANS.

"As someone who tracked (wrote about) online violence in 2013-14, I see a sharp escalation of violence online and a deterioration in the discourse, aggravated by political parties, their information cells, and their arms-length models of propagation where there are layers of propagandist groups," he added.

In this model, where there are layers of propagandist groups, each group is removed further from the previous, so there is plausible deniability by the political party concerned when something really vicious or despicable is outed, Roy explained.

--IANS

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