Kejriwal takes Twitter war to new level
If Twitter is a battle of characters, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal seemed to have the upper hand.
With 6.5 million followers, Twitter became the de facto battleground for Mr. Kejriwal as he criticised the CBI raid , and targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi for having instigated it.
The Chief Minister broke the news on the micro blogging site, tweeting ‘CBI raids my office’ in the morning. He did not spare Finance Minister Arun Jaitley either.
‘FM lied in Parliament. My own office files are being looked into to get some evidence against me,’ @ArvindKejriwal’s tweet went out. As Mr. Jaitley was offering an explanation in Parliament, about the dramatic CBI raid in the office of the Principal Secretary to the Delhi Chief Minister, Mr. Kejriwal was quick with his tweets and sharp in his counter-offensive as he made the battle personal. If former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s letters to Chief Ministers during his time served as manuals for the conduct of a Prime Minister in a federal set-up, in the age of Twitter, Chief Ministers like Mr. Kejriwal are taking on the Prime Minister in the battle of 140 characters serving as pointers for the future.
If retweets are an indication, Mr. Kejriwal had the most on his side with each of his tweets retweeted at least thousand times; @ArvindKejriwal’s “Modi is a coward and a psycopath” topped the list, despite a typo.
This tweet had a resonance elsewhere too. The Washington Post headlined its blog with ‘Someone just called India’s Narendra Modi a ‘coward’ and a ‘psychopath’ though Mr. Kejriwal had misspelt the word. @PostWorldNews tweeted ‘Someone just called India’s Narendra Modi a “coward” and a “psychopath.”’ The Guardian too headlined its story: Narendra Modi’s psychopathic, says Delhi Chief Minister after office raid.
In the past, both Mr. Modi and Mr. Kejriwal have served as best examples for anyone who wanted a primer on using Twitter to their advantage. Both have their legions, Mr. Modi more, but on Tuesday, the Delhi CM’s battle cry remained unchallenged but for minor infractions from the rival camp.
