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In the mid-1990s, I was asked to go and meet some panchayat leaders to get a sense of how devolution of power to the grassroots level was working. Village pradhans (elected head of village panchayat) from all across the country had then assembled in Delhi to take part in a national Panchayati Raj conference. For a reporter from an English business daily, it was proving to be quite a difficult task to make pradhans open up and share their experience. Suddenly, one of them asked me whether the newspaper I work for is read by the Prime Minister. The moment I said yes, I was flooded with questions, suggestions and comments.
That was the pre-social media era and the only way available for the people to make their voices heard in the corridors of power was through what we now call traditional print media.
Times have changed with the advent of 24/7 television news channels and, now, social media. The latter has given an opportunity to everyone to reach out to the high and mighty in real time. With most of the political leaders aggressively taking to popular social media platforms, there are multiples ways available now, at least in theory, to connect with the powerful people.
But has the dialogue started now? Not really. If you go through the social media accounts of prominent leaders, you will seldom find any dialogue taking place. Most posts are full of claims—ease of doing business has considerably improved, farmers are getting all that they need, requirements of small businesses taken care of, infrastructure getting upgraded, administration becoming responsive, ushering in corruption free society.. and the list is endless. There are occasional posts greeting people on such and such auspicious occasions. And there are some posts dedicated to opposition bashing.
While some CMs do not tweet for months, most others post messages related to the kind of people they meet, decisions they have taken and the important functions they attend. Bihar chief minister (CM) Nitish Kumar made his Twitter debut in May 2010 but has posted just 26 tweets so far, the last one on March 28.
There are some chief ministers, however, who like to deviate from the “official” line. Andhra Pradesh CM N Chandrababu Naidu’s tweet expressing condolences at the death of Nobel Prize winning German author Gunter Grass is one such. Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan too likes to innovate sometimes, posting motivational posters; one poster said if a villager like him can become the chief minister, why can't others become entrepreneurs.
Business Standard reviewed the presence of chief ministers of 15 large states on social media platforms. In terms of Facebook likes, Rajasthan CM Vasundhara Raje is ahead of others. Chouhan has the maximum number of followers on Twitter. Kerala CM Oommen Chandy has sent out the maximum number of tweets, most of them in the local language though.
Surprisingly, Tamil Nadu CM J Jayalalithaa and Odisha's Naveen Patnaik do not even have an official presence on Twitter or Facebook. Punjab CM Parkash Singh Badal has the Chief Minister Office’s Twitter account which is not widely followed.
The moment you ask questions, seek redressal, or raise doubts about claims, there is an interminable pause at the other end before they move on to yet another post.
I saw a post from a state government employee on his state’s chief minister’s official Facebook page seeking transfer to a particular location. All that he got was a comment from a fellow citizen asking him “Vajan rakh do guru sab ho jayega… requests bina vajan ke ud jati hai (put some weight behind your request my dear, requests without weight behind them just fly away).” Readers are free to interpret the meaning of this comment from a fellow citizen in the way they want to.
There are many such requests made every day on social media platform of elected representatives and senior government functionaries. They are laughed at and trivialised but rarely attended to, at least not on the same platform. Is this the way to facilitate two-way communication?
Social media is supposed to deepen democracy through constant exchange of ideas. Politicians’ insistence on using it for monologues suggests that they are not ready to be scrutinised in open forum. It clearly shows that the torch bearers of our democratic ideals are yet to embrace democratic ethos.
| Name | State | Tweets | Twitter Followers | Facebook Page Likes |
| N Chandrababu Naidu | Andhra Pradesh | 918 | 681,000 | 419,338 |
| Tarun Gogoi | Assam | 206 | 19,500 | NA |
| Nitish Kumar | Bihar | 26 | 52,300 | 566,824 |
| Anandiben Patel | Gujarat | 2,553 | 156,000 | 259,258 |
| Manohar Lal | Haryana | 978 | 101,000 | 104,458 |
| Oommen Chandy | Kerala | 5,151 | 30,500 | 672,121 |
| Siddaramiah | Karnataka | 5,151 | 30,500 | 672,121 |
| Shivraj Singh Chouhan | Madhya Pradesh | 3,934 | 861,000 | 2,228,757 |
| Devendra Fadnavis | Maharashtra | 4,948 | 321,000 | 1,369,186 |
| Vasundhara Raje | Rajasthan | 1,660 | 299,000 | 3,934,331 |
| Akhilesh Yadav | Uttar Pradesh | 309 | 410,000 | 1,182,962 |
| Mamata Banerjee | West Bengal | 484 | 98,200 | 1,147,919 |
(Note: Some of these specifically say 'official account', others do not; all numbers subject to change)
(Mayank Mishra covers politics for Business Standard)
