Last couple of years of developments in Indian politics have indeed left the political opinions extremely polarised in one way or the other. This is more evident on the never-ending social media conversations both on Twitter and Facebook.
Political parties of all hues have developed and trained their own social media army, who seldom miss any opportunity to launch against and counter attacks of their opponents.
In popular social media parlance, political rivals love to describe each other trolls.
However, seldom has one seen an industrialist take side in favour of or against a political outfit explicitly. Business houses providing financial support through donations to political parties is an open secret but even when they do so, they tend to avoid making song and dance on public platform. That’s primarily due to fear that today’s party in opposition may well be in power tomorrow.
It’s not surprising why many social media users on Twitter were left surprised on Wednesday when the chairman of RPG group tweeted an alleged fake photo to criticise the Arvind Kejriwal government of Delhi.
Harsh Goenka tweeted the following photo of a water-logged street claiming it to be in Delhi.
Taking a dig at Kejriwal his tweet said, “How Delhi CM has made Venice out of Delhi. And Delhiites are relishing it.”
https://twitter.com/hvgoenka/status/755448540495646721
But Goenka was soon corrected by social media users mainly AAP supporters, who claimed that the photo in question was from Mansa in Punjab and not Delhi as Goenka claimed.
This, according to Twitter users, was first published by popular Punjabi daily, Punjab Kesri on 18 July.
AAP supporters Komal tweeted,
u didnt hv d courtesy to check if d pic was frm Delhi. Hope u delete ur tweet & apologize 4 spreading lies pic.twitter.com/dSd5Ui5KaM
— कोमल 🙂 ?? (@Komal_Indian) July 20, 2016
And similar tweets were posted by several other users. Goenka later retweeted one such tweet. The industrialist has, however, not apologised or deleted his tweet yet.
But this didn’t stop others from criticising the RPG chairman.
Here are some of the reactions.
https://twitter.com/khalidmfp/status/755631494874406914
https://twitter.com/Bak_lal/status/755650930960400385
Sir @hvgoenka, please maintain the difference between you and Dolt Vijender Gupta!
— Dhiraj (@AAPlogical) July 20, 2016
Wrong!!! This pic is of PM's 7RCR residence!!! जब झूठ बोलना हो तो कुछ भी बोल दो, क्या फर्क पड़ता है 🙂 Bhakts are loving it :))
— M S Rana⚓ (@ms_rana) July 20, 2016
.@hvgoenka भक्तो के कमीने पन का आलम ये है के पंजाब की एक पुरानी तस्वीर को दिल्ली से जोड़ कर अपना कुत्ता पैन दिखा रहे pic.twitter.com/Dz7jXiypeO
— Vikky Bhamraℹ️ (@VikkyBhamra) July 20, 2016
देख घनचक्कर ….. फोटो कह की है … बीजेपी अकाली सरकार की …. अब फेकू मत बनियों ॥ pic.twitter.com/GXHDhtV1XF
— RK ? (@AAPKA_RK) July 20, 2016
