Rahul's TV Interview made bigger Impact of Digital Space

Yes, finally Rahul Gandhi, broke his silence and gave an exclusive interview on Times Now on January 27, 2014. Interviewer Arnab Goswami  tried as usual to be very aggressive and judgemental. Frankly speaking, I liked his interview, despite provocation from his interviewer, Rahul did not lower down himself to the level of Narendra Modi or Arvind kejrival. Whether he lead his party as a winner, but he has assured that without being cheap, he can put his point of view effectively.

 It was  the social media world was abuzz with all kinds of comments. A first in the recent election campaigning, timed ahead of the General Elections in India in May 2014, the interview  found mention in over 2.92 million tweets as of January 28, 2014. Confirming the number, Times Group sources indicate that the interview recorded over 3 million mentions in tweets.

Some of the biggest names in the industry and other users looked to social media platforms to voice opinion on an interview that the world’s largest democracy would have been hooked on to.

Opposition leaders wrote open letters to Rahul Gandhi, which also found way on their social media accounts on Twitter. Both Twitter and Facebook were buzzing discussing the comments of the leader and some of these comments that included #RTI, other hashtags like and #ArnabVsRahul were also trending along with the official hashtag #RahulSpeaksToArnab.

While the nature of tweets would have the Congress Party concerned, the reaction on social was an indicator of the global interest aligned with the General Elections 2014. Digital media platforms, that were prevalent during the last general elections as well, have truly played the role of empowering citizens in India to voice opinion and make a difference in the ways parties are designing their overall campaign strategy.

Amul Hoardings known to capture sentiments around national issues on the interview.

The forthcoming Loksabha Election has gathered immense attention not only in India but world over because everyone is waiting to see what will happen and whether there would be any changes following the elections,” observed  Ashutosh Srivastava, Chairman/CEO, APAC, Russia and Emerging Markets, Mindshare .

Responding to the social media frenzy, he further said, “People who generally tweet and comment on all this, tend to be largely those who talk a lot amongst themselves but are not doing much in making any changes. So we do not know what this digital media platform ultimately translates into in this election. That said, a lot of buzz is being generated and that is getting more people to talk about some of these issues. The sheer volume of tweets indicates that there are more political conversations happening than other subjects.”