Congress IT Cell head, Divyaspandana and Congress spokesperson, Priyanka Chaturvedi are two prominent female personalities in Congress Party. Priyanka and Divyaspandana enjoy their respective audience. In Today’s digital world, one who has good social media presence gets a bigger audience and this is what that’s creating differences between Divyaspandana and Priyanka Chaturvedi
Priyanka Chaturvedi started her career as a placement agent after a 3 months’ course at ISB Hyderabad. She couldn’t see any real future in that field and decided to make twitter her home, to further her political aspirations. Over the years, she became the face of abusive and misogynous Congress trolls on Twitter. In many ways, she was seen as the Head of Congress groups on Twitter and had her own fan club that dedicated itself mainly to defending and supporting her. Sanjay Jha helped her become the spokesperson of Congress on TV debates. But barring her Television presence, she was struggling to find footing in NSUI and Mahila Congress, for which she had to compete with more experienced cadres. This led her to be a mainstay on Social Media – taking responsibilities for organizing WhatsApp troll groups and creating pre-decided paid trends on Twitter for the Congress troll farm. And with the help of these paid troll farms, Priyanka Chaturvedi amassed 100s and 1000s of bots and followers and proved herself to be a formidable presence on Twitter.
But in May 2017, something happening that posed a major threat Priyanka Chaturvedi’s fast booming career. In an out of turn announcement, former Kannada actress, and MP, Divya Spandana was appointed as the Head of the Congress IT Cell, thereby shattering Priyanka Chaturvedi’s aspirations. A vast Congress troll farm that Ms. Chaturvedi had helped in creating, was now being handed over to a noob. Ms. Chaturvedi, who was now reduced to a TV panellist, got pummelled on TV debates and failed to create a mark in that area. She often faced competition from other spokesperson aspirants who had wider knowledge and experience, something that Ms. Chaturvedi lacked. And as expected, she ended up making a fool of herself on national television. Also, there were other left-leaning Journalists who outshone her on vying for favors from Congress leaders. Ms. Chaturvedi once again relied on her work on Twitter and expected some reward for the same – but that didn’t happen. Instead, Divya Spandana stole all the limelight, taking away the mantle that once belonged to Ms. Chaturvedi.
And what more, Divya Spandana had on-screen experience and was often preferred for television debates over Ms. Chaturvedi. The former’s filmi background helped in bringing TRPs for the TV News networks. This punctured Ms. Chaturvedi’s aspirations on every front. Divya Spandana, on her part, didn’t see what was wrong in appointing someone who was actually an MP – something Ms. Chaturvedi couldn’t even dream of. Spandana felt she deserved post and this wasn’t agreeable to Ms. Chaturvedi’s team, This natural inimical stance between Ms. Chaturvedi and Divya Spandana was established within weeks of the latter’s official appointment.
Priyanka Chaturvedi desperately wanted to become the head of the Congress IT Cell and worked vigorously towards it. Happy that she was made the Congress Spokie for television panels, at first she didn’t have any problems with Ms. Spandana ’s appointment. Little did she know that Ms. Spandana would get more television presence than her, as TV networks started showing a preference for Ms. Spandana given her filmy background. Ms. Chaturvedi did not know that she could be on TV debates even as the IT Cell head and was visibly upset that she had to settle only a mere Spokesperson. Ms. Chaturvedi had lost out on both fronts and the rift started widening when the older Congress twitter trolls/supporters started showing disregard for Ms. Spandana, their new head. This led Ms. Spandana to fend for herself and create new troll farms. That included approaching the much tainted Cambridge Analytica for help in generating and maintaining paid troll farms. Ms. Spandana eventually did not get any support from Congress trolls, who were loyal to Ms. Chaturvedi, assumably at the latter’s behest – which forced her to hire her own teams from Bangalore, her hometown – one of which coincidentally also operates Siddaramaiah’s twitter account. The undercurrents of this war have been going on for more than a year now, and it has effectively created differences between Ms. Chaturvedi and Ms. Spandana – all the visible signs of which are listed below. Currently, two main divisions have appeared in the Congress IT Cell ecosystem – one is the old guard that still takes orders from Ms. Chaturvedi and second, the new teams formed by Ms. Spandana. Ms. Chaturvedi currently sees herself as the North India Cong IT Cell head to differentiate herself from Ms. Spandana whose teams are largely from the South.
Top Ten signs of WAR between Priyanka Chaturvedi and Divya Spandana :
1. Both Priyanka Chaturvedi and Divya Spandana NEVER Retweet each other. When necessary, they use indirect methods or quoted tweets.
2. Despite Divya Spandana being appointed as the Congress IT Cell head in May 2017, Priyanka Chaturvedi started following her on twitter only in late December 2017! (visibly upset with her appointment)
3. Two of Priyanka Chaturvedi’s fan club accounts that she repeatedly Retweets (and trusts) i.e. @charurvediPFC and @teampriyankac19 – they both don’t even follow Ms. Divya Spandana on Twitter.
4. Despite her heavy involvement in the past, Ms. Spandana does NOT invite Ms. Chaturvedi to important strategy meetings of the Congress IT Cell.
5. Ms. Chaturvedi has an old guard on Twitter, which includes several leading Journalists- with whom she has created a bond over the years. None of these journalists shows Ms. Spandana in good light, assumably at Ms. Chaturvedi’s behest.
6. Most Congress supporters are split into two teams. They’re either with Ms. Chaturvedi or Ms. Spandana – but not both!
7. Ms. Chaturvedi being intimidated by Ms. Spandana has started trying for positions in Indian Youth Congress and NSUI, in an attempt to show credibility at the ground-level. This is because Ms. Spandana has already proved herself by winning an election in the past and Ms. Chaturvedi desperately wants to match that.
8. Ms. Spandana is upset that Ms. Chaturvedi’s old teams aren’t giving her any support. This led her to be humiliated to a point that she tried associating with Cambridge Analytica – which was subsequently busted.
9. BJP IT Cell head, Amit Malviya used to earlier benchmark and vie with Ms. Chaturvedi, has now has focused his attention fully on battling Ms. Spandana – this loss of attention apparently has not gone down too well with Ms. Chaturvedi, who also lost several thousands of Twitter followers due to this.
10. Ms. Spandana’s proximity to Rahul “Pappu” Gandhi has made Ms. Chaturvedi lose heart. She was so heartbroken that she stopped tweeting for several weeks after seeing a photoshoot of Rahul “Pappu” Gandhi and Ms. Spandana last year.
Note: This article written by one of the sharpest political observers.
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