BJP’s latest jibe at Rahul Gandhi: Pidiman, story of a dog smarter than his master

BJP’s IT cell in-charge Amit Malviya targeted Rahul Gandhi with a modified poster of Akshay Kumar’s upcoming movie ‘Padman’

Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on Sunday posted a video of his pet dog on Twitter, taking a jibe at those raising questions on his tweets. While the tweet saw a good recirculation on the micro-blogging website, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was also quick in taking a dig on the Gandhi scion over the tweet.

Hours after Rahul Gandhi posted the tweet, BJP’s IT cell in-charge Amit Malviya targeted him with a modified poster of Akshay Kumar’s upcoming movie ‘Padman’, the poster of which was released on Sunday itself.

The modified poster of the upcoming Bollywood release had a photograph of Rahul Gandhi sitting on a bicycle, with his pet dog Pidi sitting on the front rod. The text on the poster read: “Pidiman – the story of a dog who is smarter than his master”. It further said, “written & directed by Congress…released today on Twitter”.

Pidi लाओ, Congress बचाओ.. pic.twitter.com/A677QSIvah — Amit Malviya (@malviyamit) October 29, 2017

And Malviya was not the only one from the BJP who reacted to the tweet by the Gandhi scion. Joining him on the website was Assam minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. He took to Twitter to recall a meeting with Rahul Gandhi where the latter was “busy feeding biscuits” to Pidi while Biswa wanted to “discuss urgent Assam’s issues”.

He tweeted, "Sir @OfficeOfRG,who knows him better than me. Still remember you busy feeding biscuits 2 him while We wanted to discuss urgent Assam`s issues."

Sir @OfficeOfRG,who knows him better than me.Still remember you busy feeding biscuits 2 him while We wanted to discuss urgent Assam's issues https://t.co/Eiu7VsuvL1 — Himanta Biswa Sarma (@himantabiswa) October 29, 2017

Earlier in the day, Rahul posted a video on Twitter of his dog being fed biscuits and wrote, "Ppl been asking who tweets for this guy..I`m coming clean..it`s me..Pidi..I`m way ?? than him. Look what I can do with a tweet..oops..treat!"

Ppl been asking who tweets for this guy..I'm coming clean..it's me..Pidi..I'm way than him. Look what I can do with a tweet..oops..treat! pic.twitter.com/fkQwye94a5 — Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) October 29, 2017

Rahul Gandhi has been in news for a sudden rise in his retweets and number of followers. His Twitter handle, @OfficeOfRG, got more than one million new followers between July and September this year.

People in recent past retweeted the Gandhi scion more than Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, the top two Indian politicians on Twitter.

A brief study into his Twitter account also revealed that many of his followers joined the micro-blogging website in October itself and had not posted a single tweet.

However, one report claimed that alleged 'bots' with Russian, Kazakh or Indonesian characteristic were behind Gandhi's recent popularity on social media as they were routinely retweeting the Congress vice president's tweets.

Gandhi's 'resurgence' on social media also goes hand in hand with another news report claiming that the Congress had roped in Big Data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica for a more targeted digital campaign to woo voters.