Digital India and the political class

BY NANDITA JHA| IN Digital Media | 07/10/2015

If the personal use of digital tools is a measure of conviction, many leading politicians today, including several cabinet ministers, would fall short.

Research by NANDITA JHA

Deity.gov.in

A politician may not have to be Net and social media savvy him/herself to be able to provide leadership in moving governance online, or planning for increased Internet penetration for his constituency. But if personal use of digital communication tools is a measure of their conviction, many leading politicians today, including several cabinet ministers, would fall short.

The focus on the use of digital communication by the political class has come about because of the prime minister’s high profile advocacy of the Internet and social media and his reliance on Twitter to communicate with citizens. If we were to begin by looking at Twitter, he leads the pack among his cabinet ministers.

Those on twitter in order of activeness are:

		Twitter Handle	No of tweets (till Oct 1, ’15)	Ministry
1	Narendra Modi	@narendramodi	9,491	PM
2	Smriti Irani	@smritiirani	7,411	HRD
3	Kalraj Mishra	@KalrajMishra	4,167	Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises
4	Sushma Swaraj	@SushmaSwaraj	3,270	External Affairs
5	Ravi Shankar Prasad	@rsprasad	1,841	Communications and Information Technology
6	Suresh Prabhu	@sureshpprabhu	1,752	Railways
7	Rajnath Singh	@BJPRajnathSingh	1,533	Home Affairs
8	Ananth Kumar	@AnanthKumar_BJP	1,224	Chemicals and Fertilizers
9	JP Nadda	@JPNadda	1,195	Health and Family Welfare
10	Harsh Vardhan	@drharshvardhan	1,007	Science and Technology
11	Arun Jaitley	@arunjaitley	980	Finance, Corporate Affairs, I & B
12	M Venkaiah Naidu	@MVenkaiahNaidu	904	Urban Development, Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, Parliamentary Affairs
13	Nitin Gadkari	@nitin_gadkari	724	Road Transport and Highways Shipping
14	Maneka Gandhi	@Manekagandhibjp	332	Women and Child Development
15	Manohar Parikar	@manoharparrikar	122	Defence

Most active on twitter. Clockwise: Narendra Modi, Smriti Irani, Kalraj Mishra, Sushma Swaraj

Political leaders who belong to other parties include champion tweeters who far outnumber those in government.

Top 5 Tweeters among politicians

Politician	Twitter Handle	No of tweets
Derek O’Brien	@quizderek	30.2K
Shashi Tharoor	@ShashiTharoor	28.7K
Narendra Modi	@narendramodi	9,491
Arvind Kejriwal	@ArvindKejriwal	8,950
Smriti Irani	@smritiirani	7,411

We took three indicators of personal use of the Web and social media: Twitter accounts,websites and blogs. The only cabinet member to have all three, apart from his official website and official twitter account, is the prime minister.

Those who had none of these were the following nine:

No website, no twitter, and no blog

	Cabinet Ministers	Ministry
1	Uma Bharti	Water Resources
2	Najma A Heptulla	Minority Affairs
3	Ram Vlas Paswan	Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution
4	Ashok Gajapathi Raju	Civil Aviation
5	Anant Geete	Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises
6	Narendra Singh Tomar	Mines, Steel
7	Ch. Birender Singh	Rural Development, Panchayati Raj, Drinking Water and Sanitation
8	Radha Mohan Singh	Agriculture
9	Thawar Chand Gehlot	Social Justice and Empowerment

Some ministers have both websites and Twitter accounts:

Website and Twitter

Ravi Shankar Prasad	http://www.ravishankarprasad.in/en/	@rsprasad
Rajnath Singh	www.rajnathsingh.in/	@BJPRajnathSingh
M Venkaiah Naidu	http://mvenkaiahnaidu.com	@MVenkaiahNaidu
Nitin Gadkari	http://www.nitingadkari.org/	@nitin_gadkari
Suresh Prabhu	http://www.sureshprabhu.in	@sureshpprabhu
Kalraj Mishra	http://kalrajmishra.com/	@KalrajMishra
Ananth Kumar	http://ananth.org/	@AnanthKumar_BJP
Harsh Vardhan	http://www.drharshvardhan.com	@drharshvardhan

Some have only websites, and out of 26 cabinet ministers only one has a blog. That is Arun Jaitley but he penned his thoughts for a very short period.(5 August 2014 to 14 January 2015)

Ministers with personal websites

Harsimrat Kaur Badal	http://www.harsimratbadal.com/	No verified Twitter account	No blog
Jual Oram	http://jualoram.com	No verified account	No blog
Sadananda Gowda	http://sadanandagowda.com	No Verified account	No Blog

Those without websites or blogs.

1	Smriti Irani
2	Sushma Swaraj
3	Manohar Parikar
4	Uma Bharti
5	Najma A Heptulla
6	Ram Vilas Paswan
7	Maneka Gandhi
8	JP Nadda
9	Ashok Gajapathi Raju
10	Anant Geete
11	Narendra Singh Tomar
12	Ch. Birender Singh
13	Radha Mohan Singh

Those not on Twitter are:

No Twitter Account

1	Sadananda Gowda
2	Uma Bharti
3	Najma A Heptulla
4	Ram Vilas Paswan
5	Ashok Gajapathi Raju
6	Anant Geete
7	Harsimrat Kaur Badal
8	Narendra Singh Tomar
9	Ch. Birender Singh
10	Jual Oram
11	Radha Mohan Singh
12	Thawar Chand Gehlot

And finally what is the picture with regard to Congress politicians? Rahul Gandhi himself doesn’t have anything, the Twitter account in his name is handled by his office.

Congress politicians

Politician	Website	Twitter	Blog
Rahul Gandhi	No Website	@OfficeOfRG, Official Twitter Account	No Blog
Sonia Gandhi	http://www.soniaindia.com/intro.html	No Account	No Blog
Shashi Tharoor	http://www.shashitharoor.in/	@ShashiTharoor	No Blog
Digvijay Singh	http://www.digvijayasingh.in/	@digvijaya_28	http://www.digvijayasingh.in/articles.html
Rajiv Shukla	http://rajeevshukla.com/	@ShuklaRajiv	http://rajeevshukla.com/blogdetail.aspx?blog_id=1

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