The BJP on Friday hit out at detractors of its prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi saying anti-Modism was no longer a political philosophy alone and has also become a commercial activity.
On a day a website claimed politicians, including Modi, were artificially boosting their support on social media sites, leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley claimed some of these websites were ‘making a mountain of what is not even a molehill’.
In a fresh post on his Facebook page, Jaitley wrote, “Suddenly a series of websites have appeared with some stories and some non-stories. Anti-Modism is no longer merely a political philosophy. It is also commerce. Some of these websites are making a mountain of what is not even a molehill. The dirty tricks department of the Congress continues to commercially flourish. It is a different matter that even the tricks are failing to spread the dirt.”
Claiming Modi’s election meetings have revived public’s interest in rallies and that Congress’s undeclared prime ministerial candidate was making no impact, Jaitley said, “A large number of NGOs with invisible funding which had made a living out of keeping anti-Modi litigations alive in Courts have not so far succeeded in bringing out any material evidence against him.”
Making a veiled attack on Tehelka, the senior BJP leader said an important publication which was used in the past for more than a decade to carry on anti-Modi campaign appears to be collapsing under the weight of its own immorality.
Meanwhile, BJP spokesman Prakash Javadekar claimed that Cobrapost sting on IT companies involved in artificially boosting popularity of politicians, including Modi, was sponsored by the Congress.
“Modi’s rallies are getting a huge response compared to those by Congress leaders. They are desperate and hence are using its dirty tricks department to spread such lies,” Javadekar said.
The sting, Operation Blue Virus, claimed to have exposed about two dozen little-known IT firms across the country, which in the garb of providing reputation management services on social media, also offer fake fan following and posting defamatory content using IP addresses of others by hacking into them.