Mumbai: A former employee of an alleged Information Technology (IT) cell of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has made shocking revelations about the saffron party’s strategy to troll opponents. The employee, a city-based man, has claimed the BJP had set up a temporary IT cell in Andheri and had hired several youngsters for trolling the rival party leaders, to create fake news and to also promote the schemes of the Union as well as the Maharashtra government. The employee, who has wished not to be named, told the Free Press Journal that he left the job within a month as he could not cope up with the “atmosphere” in the office.
“Most of the employees there are fresh graduates, who have completed journalism course. These are mostly from rural Maharashtra,” said the employee. According to him, the BJP pays a mere Rs 8000 to these youth. “Their work is to retweet the tweets of Prime Minister’s Office, Narendra Modi and also the posts of other senior ministers or BJP leaders. They are asked to put positive comments for the schemes of the government and if any netizen criticises the said policy, then these employees have to anyhow defend the government,” the man said. “Not only this, they were also asked to post at least more than 50 tweets praising the government and the leaders,” said the former employee.
Apart from all this, the IT cell also manufactured fake news. “This was the primary task of all the employees. They had to create fake news and make it viral on all social media forums including WhatsApp,” the man said. He added, “Another important work assigned to them was to troll all the opposition leaders and supporters of Congress.” The employee, who resigned, earlier this year further claimed, Congress leader Sanjay Nirupam lost his post of Mumbai Regional Congress Committee (MRCC) because of the “campaign” of this IT cell. “Nirupam was always on target. The team kept on trolling him unnecessarily. Rumours were spread that because of Nirupam, the local workers of Congress were planning to leave the party. He was blamed for the discord inside Congress,” the employee claimed.