Assam BJP leader Himanta Biswa Sarma has not only joined the #MainBhiChowkidar campaign but also changed his Twitter profile to prefixing “chowkidar” to his name.
The social media campaign was launched ahead of the Lok Sabha election by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday and it gathered momentum with senior leaders and Union ministers joining the movement on Twitter.
The campaign has been launched to counter Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s repeated attacks on Modi and his government over the Rafale jet deal.
On Sunday morning, the Prime Minister led the way, adding “chowkidar” to his name in the twitter handle. Within an hour, his party chief Amit Shah and a number of Union and state ministers followed suit.
Sarma, too, changed his Twitter profile to Chowkidar Himanta Biswa Sarma, who has emerged as the party’s key strategist for the region for his electoral exploits. On Saturday, he had uploaded a tweet in Hindi where he urged the people to join the Prime Minister’s campaign.
After Sarma, Assam chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal also change his Twitter profile to Chowkidar Sarbananda Sonowal.
A BJP source said, “It is a nationwide social media campaign. Many leaders from here and the Northeast have already changed their Twitter profile in support of the campaign. The Prime Minister will interact with netizens on March 31 as part of the campaign. The BJP has developed a tech innovation called conversation cards on Twitter, whereby netizens will get a personalized message from the Prime Minister on Twitter for participating in this campaign.”
The use of the word “chowkidar” dates back to the 2014 general elections poll campaign when Modi had promised to work as a “chowkidar” to guard people’s money and their trust once elected.
Around 50 students from different colleges of the city, on the other hand, on Sunday in the name of Northeast for Modi, carried out a cleanliness drive on banks of the Brahmaputra to highlight Modi’s Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.
Kastury Hazarika, a student, said, “The great initiatives of our Prime Minister will be highlighted through various programmes in the entire Northeast. This is our first step in this regard.”
