#GoBackModi vs #TNWelcomesModi as PM visits Chennai

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is here on Monday to attend the convocation ceremony of the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology (IIT-M). And it was time for a bitter battle between anti-BJP and pro-BJP supporters in the highly polarised Tamil Twitter world.

#GoBackModi, the hashtag that caught the attention of the social media world in April 2018 and thereafter whenever the Prime Minister visited this city, and #TNWelcomesModi were in fierce competition to trend on eraly Monday morning.

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As of 10.30 am, #GOBackModi was trending with 29,000 tweets, while #TNWelcomesModi was a distant second with 11,300 tweets. The #GoBackModi hashtags were used in tweets that pointed to “failures” of the BJP Government led by Modi like GST, demonetisation and handling of Jammu and Kashmir.

#GoBackModi first trended on April 12, 2018 when Modi was in Chennai to inaugurate the Defence Expo and participate in a few other programmes as the way of Tamils’ opposing his visit for his government’s alleged silence and inaction on issues related to the state.

Though Modi visited on Monday to attend IIT function, the hashtag began trending on Twitter since morning. The BJP also began tweeting using #TNWelcomesModi.

But the major difference between April last year and this year was that the BJP’s social media machinery was also giving tough time to #GoBackModi by trending their own hashtags -- #TNWelcomesModi.