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The evolving relation between social media personalities and the political landscape continues to intrigue and challenge the norms of electoral engagement. ADITI PHADNIS explains

- ADITI PHADNIS

"The Congress party has never paid any individual to do any interviews. We pick up voices, sound bites of common people. That's what is reflected on our social media handle. We don't pay influencers to interview us. We don't organ- 2024 Bha Ma ise conclaves with digital creators so that we can influence their pattern of thinking. That's not who we are, that's not something that we do," said Supriya Shrinate, chairman of Social Media and Digital Platforms of the party.

She was referring to the first ever National Creators Award, given by Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier in March, to digital content creators. The government says the winners were "selected" by a jury from among 150,000 nominations, followed by voting. But marketing agencies that have a database of influencers say they got no intimation that such awards were going to be given out. "The content they (the award winners) generate is broadly supportive of the policies of the government," said a market source.

Ranveer Allahbadia, who runs a YouTube channel called BeerBicepsGuy, has 500,000 followers on X and has interviewed several Union Ministers in the recent past, got the "Disruptor of the Year" award. At the function, he told Modi: "Aapke saath podcast karne ka mood ho raha hai (I feel like making a podcast with you)." The Prime Minister advised him to flag the importance of sleep in his future shows.

Allahbadia claims to tweet about growth, health and general self-improvement. He podcasts on Spotify via a show called The Ranveer Show (TRS). A recent episode was a debate on "The Truth About Hindu vs Muslim". He gets 450 million views, he says.