By Pooja Chaudhuri and Pratik Sinha

An alleged document prepared by the All India Congress Committee (AICC) to “corner the Modi government and various BJP governments in the country” through social media and on-ground strategies was extensively shared by top BJP leaders on May 18. The hashtag #CongressToolKitExposed soon began trending.

Here is part 5 of the story -

No evidence of implementation of social media strategies mentioned on the ‘toolkit’

What is a toolkit? It’s a document that lays down strategies for future course of action – what needs to be done and how. The COVID-19 toolkit defines what should be the messaging on social media and the actions that need to be taken on-ground.

However, most of the directions of the toolkit refer to events that have already taken place. A document meant for suggesting courses of action for May 2021 and beyond, has several events which have already occurred in the month of April.

“International media coverage by foreign correspondents in India can be tailored to exclusively focus on Modi and his mismanagement,” says the document prepared in May, whereas international media has been critical of the Modi government since April.

Akhilesh Mishra, former director of the BJP government’s online citizen engagement initiative ‘MyGov India’, shared Rahul Gandhi’s Instagram post depicting mass funerals of COVID victims. Mishra juxtaposed this with an article in The New York Times that also depicts mass funerals. Gandhi’s post is from April 29 and The New York Times article is from April 25, yet Mishra alleged that the ‘toolkit’ is responsible for the report even though the so-called document was prepared a few weeks later.

Mishra is connected with numerous pro-BJP propaganda pages. Alt News’s elaborate report on his ‘BJP connection’ can be read here.
(https://www.altnews.in/investigating-twitter-handle-know-the-nation-that-shared-rahul-gandhis-clipped-video/)


The toolkit also instructs the repeated use of certain words and phrases to create a narrative on social media.

To be continued - an Alt News investigation