Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s Facebook page recorded over 40% more engagements than Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s from September 25 to October 2, Hindustan Times reported on Monday, citing the party.
Data mined from Facebook analytics shows 1.39 crore engagements with Gandhi’s posts during this period, a Congress leader said. The engagements include comments, likes, and shares. On the other hand, Modi’s posts during the same period had only 82 lakh engagements.
Modi is one of the most followed leaders on Facebook, with nearly 4.59 crore followers compared to Gandhi’s 35 lakh.
The number of engagements with Gandhi’s page may be higher than those with Modi’s because of the number of times the two leaders posted between September 25 and October 2. While Gandhi made 52 posts, Modi posted only 11 times. Gandhi posted frequently about farmer protests and the Hathras rape and murder case, whereas Modi posted an address to BJP workers, about some developmental projects and his United Nations General Assembly speech. He made no posts about the Hathras incident or the controversial new farming laws.
An unidentified Congress leader told the Hindustan Times that the key variable is engagement. “Although Rahul Gandhi has far fewer followers than Narendra Modi, the former’s engagement levels are much higher that include likes, comments, shares, etc.,” he said. “It is a key indicator of how audiences are relating to the content.”
The Congress functionary said that the increase in engagements on Gandhi’s page has coincided with protests against the gangrape and murder of the 20-year-old Dalit woman in Hathras. Gandhi has been leading the Congress’ protests, visiting the woman’s village along with Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi, amid police attempts to prevent him from doing so.
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