Ghosts from past haunt candidates on social media

Ghosts from past haunt candidates on social media

CHENNAI: Ghosts from the past are taking the social media route to haunt politicians, especially party hoppers, this time.

S Suriamoorthy was all set to campaign after filing his nomination as a KMDK candidate in Namakkal when a 10-year-old video showing him making casteist remarks surfaced. He lost his candidature.

At a more high-profile level, two leaders are slugging it out with ‘visual evidence’ of each other’s past. Sports minister Udhayanidhi Stalin was the first to flash photographs of AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami falling at the feet of V Sasikala when she announced his name for the CM post in 2017 after J Jayalalithaa’s death. Sasikala is now EPS’s subject of scorn. EPS retaliated in kind, showing pictures of Udhayanidhi and M K Stalin with PM Narendra Modi, implying they have a secret pact with BJP.

DMK and BJP have locked horns by sharing decade-old videos and images. DMK’s IT wing has been posting videos of Modi, when he was Gujarat CM. In those speeches, Modi criticised the UPA govt for depreciation of Indian rupee and lesser financial devolution for states – something he is now being accused of.

DMK IT wing members frequently share old videos of BJP state president K Annamalai when he was IPS officer in Karnataka. The video in which Annamalai boasts of being a “proud Kannadiga” is often shared by DMK sympathisers asking people not to forget “Annamalai’s double standards”.

BJP targets DMK by sharing a photograph of chief minister M K Stalin when he signed an MoU for coal bed methane extraction in Cauvery delta districts in 2011. The government now opposes a lignite extraction project in the Cauvery delta. The saffron party’s IT wing recently shared an old picture of Udhayanidhi watching a cricket match with a yellow jersey bearing the advertisement of a liquor company, to say that DMK would not fulfil its electoral promise of prohibition.

Old videos of Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal criticising Congress and now joining hands with the national party are shared by NDA supporters. As a tit-for-tat, old videos of BJP leaders criticising former Maharashtra CM Ajit Pawar and recent ones of his sharing a stage with BJP leaders are being widely circulated.

N Karthikeyan, a cyber law expert, cautions politicians. “Now everything is transparent. What you post today may be used as a weapon years later,” he said.

For more news like this visit TOI. Get all the Latest News, City News, India News, Business News, and Sports News. For Entertainment News, TV News, and Lifestyle Tips visit Etimes