- Saturday, May 18, 2024
Indian expatriates in the UAE and even people from other nationalities such as Emiratis and Britons received the ‘Viksit Bharat Sampark’ message, leaving them surprised and even worried.
By: Shubham Ghosh
SEVERAL people in India received a WhatsApp message on their smartphones originating from an Indian number that looked for suggestions and feedback on the various schemes and initiatives of the Narendra Modi government, along with a letter from prime minister Modi in form of a PDF attachment ahead of the general elections 2024. The recipients were addressed as “my dear family members”.
But while one could still understand it as a campaign strategy that was implemented soon after the Indian election commission announced the seven-phase election kicking off in the country on April 19, Indian expatriates in the UAE and even people from other nationalities such as Emiratis, Pakistanis and Britons received the ‘Viksit Bharat Sampark’ message, leaving them surprised, the Khaleej Times reported.
Some of the recipients who do not reside in India were pleasantly surprised but the non-Indians, who cannot participate in the voting procedure in the world’s largest democracy, were stunned. Some of them were even wondering how the senders got their numbers and alleged it to be a perceived breach of data privacy.
Read: India national polls to kick off on April 19; results on June 4
Asma Zain, a Pakistani journalist based in Dubai, was puzzled when the message reached her at midnight.
“It left me wondering: what sort of suggestions could Mr. Modi possibly need from me? And more importantly, should I even be providing them?” she told Khaleej Times.
Zain’s thoughts were echoed by Fahad Siddiqui, also a Pakistani, who called it “very strange”.
Read: UK FTA talks close ahead of India’s 2024 election schedule
A British resident of Dubai, who went to India for work recently, also got the message.
A number of Emiratis also received the letter.
Modi and his BJP are seeking a rare third consecutive term in power. They have set their eyes on 400 seats in a Lok Sabha or Lower House of the parliament with 543 members. The Hindu nationalist party has promised to make India a developed country by 2047, the year the country will complete 100 years of its independence from colonial rule. Modi has also pledged to make India the world’s third largest economy in his third term.
The opposition parties in India, however, slammed the outreach efforts on WhatsApp, alleging them as political propaganda in the guise of citizens’ feedback. The Indian National Congress lawmaker Shashi Tharoor from the southern state of Kerala, which is home to tens of thousands of Indians who live and work in the Gulf, shared on his X platform screenshots of a post made on professional platform LinkedIn by Anthony J Permal, a UAE-based consultant, along with comments.
Will the @ECISVEEP take note of such a blatant misuse of government machinery and government data to serve the partisan political interests of the ruling party? pic.twitter.com/wrV6iWwfsJ
— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) March 18, 2024
Sharing a screenshot of the message, Permal wrote, “Yesterday multiple nationalities in the UAE received a ‘personal’ WhatsApp message from Indian PM Modi, addressed to Indians abroad, in what can only be described as a blatant violation of privacy laws and etiquette. It was received by thousands of non Indians on their private mobile numbers. How did the BJP and the Indian government get a hold of our numbers? And how can it just blatantly spam non-Indians in the thousands? So much for an ethical government.”
In his comment while posting Permal’s words, Tharoor called it a ‘blatant misuse’ of government machinery and data and tagged the Election Commission of India to say, “Will the @ECISVEEP take note of such a blatant misuse of government machinery and government data to serve the partisan political interests of the ruling party?”
Last month, the BJP’s national president J P Nadda launched ‘Viksit Bharat Modi ki guarantee’ video vans, seeking suggestions from citizens across the country to shape the party’s manifesto for the upcoming elections.
