The recent arrest of woman journalist Revathi Pogadadanda, along with her colleague, by the Hyderabad cybercrime police in connection with a video showing a farmer using abusive and offensive language against Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy highlights the growing frustration within the Congress camp.
Regardless of whether the video was fabricated or genuinely reflected the farmer’s sentiments, the incident underscores how the opposition Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) has been aggressively leveraging social media to undermine the ruling Congress and fuel a negative campaign against the Revanth Reddy government.
In fact, the BRS has seized every minor incident to attack the Congress government. Since losing power to the Congress in the November 30, 2023, Assembly elections, BRS working president K.T. Rama Rao has extensively used social media to maintain the party’s image while launching attacks on the Congress.
Reports indicate that the ruling Congress is significantly lagging behind the BRS in social media influence. For every 100 political posts appearing online, more than 90 are against the Congress, with only a handful in its favor, reflecting a weak digital defense.
Whenever the Chief Minister or any Congress leader makes a misstep or an offhand remark, pro-BRS social media groups waste no time in trolling them with catchy memes, spoofs, and other content. Even some mainstream media outlets continue to operate in favor of the BRS.
On the other hand, the Congress, and particularly Revanth Reddy, has struggled to effectively manage media outreach and publicize government policies and programs.
Analysts suggest that the Revanth government’s performance is significantly better than that of KCR’s administration, which benefited from extensive media hype.
While Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) social media wing president Manne Satish has limited resources to mount a large-scale campaign in favor of the Revanth government or to counter the BRS narrative, the state government's own digital media wing, led by senior journalist Sriram Karri, has also failed to effectively respond to the opposition's online attacks.
Despite being in office for over a year, the Congress is still struggling to mobilize its resources to counter the BRS's social media dominance.
“For now, the Congress government appears to be responding to the BRS’s negative campaign primarily by filing cases against those posting critical comments. This approach, however, is doing more harm than good to Revanth Reddy,” an analyst observed.
