Why PM Narendra Modi is upset with social media

The social media had played a significant role in his rise before and during the Lok Sabha election 2014. He was even dubbed as India's first social media prime minister. But today, nearly two years after taking over, the same Narendra Modi is not quite happy with the new media.

The PM, who invited the Opposition leaders top his office on Tuesday to ensure that the next parliamentary session is not disrupted in the wake of various noisy episodes, reportedly expressed his dissatisfaction over the way the social media is behaving at times.

He regretted that the media is not being used in a constructive way as too many people are expressing their viewpoints through it, reports said.

Prior to the Lok Sabha polls, Modi had stressed social media and set up his own team for campaigning. One reason for it was the mainstream media's unkind attitude towards him, something which had started after the Gujarat pogroms in 2002. The extensive utilisation of the social media by Modi's election team saw his opponent parties fall much behind as they were more familiar with the traditional ways of poll campaigning.

The Congress, which is not known to be tech-savvy, lost the contest decisively because of the social media factor. Other leaders though tried their hands in this form of media to match Modi, but the latter had already taken a big lead over them.

Modi did not forget the social media even after becoming the prime minister. He regularly tweets even though hasn't held a single press conference till date as the PM and often pushes his ministers to connect to the public through social media to project their work.

Has social media started to boomerang now?

The Opposition has mocked that when Modi had started using social media for a political purpose, others were yet to get a hang of it but now they have slowly started gaining momentum. And moreover, with a series of incidents happening across the country beginning from Dadri to Hyderabad to JNU, the same social media is feeding growing anti-establishment sentiments, something which even the best of rulers across the world have faced.

Modi had a favourable equation with the social media when the former UPA government was buried under the pressure of anti-incumbency and also in his earlier days. But with a couple of electoral losses and occurrence of issues like in UP, Hyderabad and New Delhi, the strength has started to show as a weakness.

PM Modi will look to bounce back in some form soon to regain the immense popularity he had on social media in the recent past.