The “Main Bhi Chowkidar” campaign has been a sensational hit by far and on March 31, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be interacting with 25 lakh chowkidars through a video conference. Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad confirmed the news while addressing the reporters in a press conference today.
The “Main Bhi Chowkidar” movement had taken the internet by a blazing storm, the minister said in a statement. With the hashtag being tweeted 20 lakh times and 1,680 crore impressions, it has become a “people’s movement”, he added.
The Prime Minister added a prefix to his personal Twitter handle name which reads, Chowkidar Narendra Modi. Following PM, BJP president and other BJP leaders too changed their profile names to Chowkidar Amit Shah, Chowkidar Piyush Goyal, etc.
The campaign has been launched to counter the Congress President Rahul Gandhi’s ” chowkidar chor hai” dig against the Prime Minister. The party has initiated the campaign as part of its plan to turn the tables as it did in the year 2014 by aggressively countering former Union Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar’s “chaiwalla” jibe.
The movement also triggered a counter-campaign from Hardik Patel, Congress entrant who made headlines for using the prefix “Berojgar” (unemployed or jobless) which drew attention quickly on Twitter.
Annoyed by the Congress campaign this morning, a Haryana’s BJP minister Anil Vij took a dig, saying if the party did not like the nomenclature Chowkidar, “You too prefix #Pappu before your names. We won’t mind that”.
Over the last year, “Chowkidar chor hai (the watchman is a thief),” has been Rahul Gandhi’s slogan to mock the party’s claim that PM Modi had been involved in ‘corruption’ and crony capitalism in the Rafale deal.
At the end of Day 1, PM Modi tweeted: “Fellow Indians, Happy that #MainBhiChowkidar has ignited the Chowkidar within all of us. Great fervour! Ecstatic to see the passion and commitment to protect India from corrupt, criminal and anti-social elements. Let us keep working together for a developed India.”
