{"id":35209,"date":"2019-03-13T11:23:06","date_gmt":"2019-03-13T11:23:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=35209"},"modified":"2019-03-13T11:23:06","modified_gmt":"2019-03-13T11:23:06","slug":"indias-prime-minister-modi-in-29-tweet-pre-election-blitz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=35209","title":{"rendered":"India’s Prime Minister Modi in 29-tweet pre-election blitz"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi<\/a> launched a charm offensive on Twitter where he reached out to a cross-section of celebrities, that included his political rivals, and urged them to help increase voter turnout in the world’s largest democratic exercise.<\/p>\n

In 29 rapid-fire tweets early on Wednesday morning, Modi tagged Bollywood stars, cricketers, a news anchor as well as Congress President Rahul Gandhi, Trinamool Congress Chief Mamata Banerjee and Bahujan Samaj Party Chief Mayawati.<\/p>\n

Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have played a pioneering role in the use of social media for electioneering in India<\/a>. Their near-total dominance on Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp gave them an edge over their opponents in the 2014 elections which they won by a huge margin.<\/p>\n

In his tweet to the opposition leaders, Modi, who has 46.3 million followers on Twitter, said, “A high turnout augurs well for our democratic fabric.”<\/p>\n

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I appeal to @RahulGandhi<\/a>, @MamataOfficial<\/a>, @PawarSpeaks<\/a>, @Mayawati<\/a>, @yadavakhilesh<\/a>, @yadavtejashwi<\/a> and @mkstalin<\/a> to encourage increased voter participation in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. A high turnout augurs well for our democratic fabric.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) March 13, 2019<\/a>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In his tweet to Bollywood stars Singh and Kaushal, Modi picked dialogues from their hit movies Gully Boy and Uri: The Surgical Strike and said they could motivate youngsters to use their voting right.<\/p>\n

“It is time to tell them (youngsters): Apna Time Aa Gaya Hai (our time has come) and that it is time to turn up with high Josh (zeal) to a voting centre near you.”<\/p>\n

Despite remaining popular, Modi faces a challenge to repeat the 2014 feat when India’s 900 million voters cast ballots between April 11 and May 19.<\/p>\n

The opposition says Modi’s flagship policies have failed to produce promised jobs, while thousands of debt-ridden farmers have committed suicide in recent years.<\/p>\n

His party, however, appears to have gained ground after India launched air attacks on Pakistan<\/a> last month in response to a suicide bombing that killed 40 Indian troops in the Pulwama town of Indian-administered Kashmir<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The recent conflagration\u00a0with Pakistan also marked a peak in the war of words between the ruling party and its detractors, with opposition leaders accusing Modi’s government of mishandling the country’s internal security.<\/p>\n

Modi’s tweets on Wednesday were the first bipartisan gesture from him since campaigning for the general election started.<\/p>\n

Results from the election are due on May 23.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a charm offensive on Twitter where he reached out to a cross-section of celebrities, that included his political rivals, and urged them to help increase voter turnout in the world’s largest democratic exercise. In 29 rapid-fire tweets early on Wednesday morning, Modi tagged Bollywood stars, cricketers, a news anchor as…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35209\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}