Change of guard: #Chowkidaar prefix to make way for new campaign

After Modi dropped the prefix, about 32% people had dropped it too, including Piyush Goyal, Arun Jaitley, and Smriti Irani.

It seems chowkidaar would not be guarding BJP’s interest on the back of which it won its massive mandate. The tagline has been dropped from the Twitter handle of the PM. And other leaders, sources said, might follow suit.

“The time has come to take the chowkidaar spirit to the next level. The word chowkidaar goes from my Twitter name but it remains an integral part of me. Urging you all to do the same too!” Modi tweeted on Thursday evening.

According to sources in Bharatiya Janata Party, the party is going to coin a new term that would replace chowkidaar. This term would portray how the government would function over the next five years. “The people of India became chowkidaars and rendered great service to the nation. Chowkidaar has become a powerful symbol to safeguard India from the evils of casteism, communalism, corruption and cronyism,” the PM said in another tweet.

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A call on a new campaign would be taken soon. The social media managers of the party, in the meantime, are working on the next big campaign slogan and tagline. “The tagline and the campaign would focus on good governance and what the government plans to do for the people. But those things are yet to be finalised. Everyone in the leadership has been told to stay put for the next big thing,” a source said. According to sources, Modi will launch the new campaign in the months to come.

On March 15, BJP launched its ‘Main bhi Chowkidaar’ campaign, with the Prime Minister, several Cabinet ministers and BJP supporters putting ‘Chowkidar’ or watchman before their name on Twitter. The campaign resonated with the voter base, with the ruling party even creating a radio song around the theme during their election campaign.

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The PM prefixed “Chowkidaar” to his profile on March 15, and also gave the hashtag #MainBhiChowkidaar. According to research by the Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) Delhi and Hyderabad, within 10 days as many as 404,000 tweets had been tagged with #MainBhiChowkidaar.

After the PM dropped the prefix, about 32 per cent people had dropped it too, including Piyush Goyal, Arun Jaitley and Smriti Irani. As of 7 pm on Thursday, 174,000 people were still using chowkidaar in their Twitter names, IIIT analysis.