Pappupedia and NaMo Anthem: Rahul Gandhi and Modi's Divergent Social Popularity

Look no further if you want to see how divergent is the social media path going for India's most talked about current politicians.One is steaming ahead with full force, with his skilled team in place, making sure he is talked about for all the right reasons. The other one, for some strange reason, is preferring to go solo , but with hilariously devastating results

If you haven't guessed till now, well then please come down to Earth from Mars, will you. Narendra Modi's PR skills deserve a social media award and Rahul Gandhi's increasingly frequent 'foot in mouth' statements deserve a detailed study of his mind. The so called social media war between Modi and Rahul seems to be non-existant. And we have two recent examples to prove the point.

Pappu Thrashing Gets an Address-Pappupedia

Firstly, given the state of censorship we have, expect this site to go down pretty soon.Designed as a Wikipedia page entry, Pappupedia crosses all limits of decency to insult the Gandhi scion, never once considering him as a normal, breathing human being. But Rahul Gandhi himself, has been making so many bizarre statements ever since his emergence on the national political scene, that you can't really blame the makers of the website for lampooning his silly statements. But the personal attacks seem way too harsh and crude, especially the family history and education sub-section, where two images showing the Gandhi-Nehru family tree and a news paper article questioning his educational qualifications are placed.

The fact that the makers of the site have spent a considrebale time making these two up is clearly evident in the big block on top of these links that urges users to like and share it on Facebook and Twitter.Another below the belt effort is visible on top of the page, where a Sonia Gandhi cartoon is accompanied by an appeal from "PappuPedia founders"-'We indulge in scams because we need money for Pappu’s brain transplant.You can help us mend our ways by donating'.

The page has been carefully made, with almost every dumb statement made by the Congress VP listed. Numerous You Tube videos and some origianl cartoons drive home the point, but the funniest of the lot is ofcourse the political career section, which has a blank white image listed below.

With the 2014 elections looming large, one can make a long shot guess and say that the BJP's social media cell has done a commendable job. But the real question really should be -How serious is Rahul Gandhi about his political ambitions? Or, does he actually have any?

While his supposed rival orates with confidence and command, but most importantly purpose, Rahul's speeches come across as patchy and lacking in a central idea. The general feeling that a listner goes away with, is that this man wants to do something grand, but doesn't really have a plan in hand.

Rahul Gandhi's ideas seem well intentioned. But the way he goes about presenting them (Hello, ordinance is non-sense fiasco) hardly do anything to inspire the youth. His speeches often has that one ridiculous line, that over shadows his entire context and hijacks the headlines. #Pappu starts trending on Twitter and people waste no time in ridiculing him. If Rahul Baba has any serious intentions of occupying India's most powerful position, he does need to start paying attention to how he is actually perceived by the general public. And ofcourse, he should, must, absolutely hire a speech writer.

Or take a lesson from BJP's man of the moment.

Narendra Modi doesn't need anybody to help him get attention. He himself generates enough sound bytes and headline grabbing antics for that. But help is always welcome. Thanks to a good public image (real or created-we may never know), Narendra Modi has had it easy when it came to getting someone to hear what he has to say. But whatever he does say, he says so in style. We may never get to verify his tall claims or allegations or even his defense, because he speaks so charmingly and purposefully. And he has a rocking team in place to ensure that he reaches out to almost every section of the society through every means possible including Twitter and Facebook.

Modi has clearly won many fans over. And one enthusiastic fan has even gone ahead and created a NaMo youth anthem for BJP's man in charge. There is some fast rapping, lot of rhyming words and lots and lots of NaMo mentions.