Paper Details

Name: Manpreet Kaur
Country: India

Year: 2023
Volume: Volume-10, Issue-1 (January-June)
Page Number: 11-17

India is a democratic country with a federal structure. Sovereignty is a vital feature of Indian democracy. Each citizen lives under two sets of laws: the laws of the centre and the laws of the concerned state. (Indian history and the contemporary world, 2020) Punjab, as a border state, holds a unique position in India. The main political narrative in the state, both on the ground and in the virtual world, has been heavily dominated by the intense rivalry between the Indian National Congress on the one hand and its traditional bête noire, the Shiromani Akali Dal, on the other, which had an earlier alliance in Punjab with the Bhartiya Janata Party. While the farm bill issue finally led to the BJP losing its oldest ally, the Shiromani Akali Dal. The Aam Admi Party, the third force in the state, was the one who started the social media trends in Punjab politics, which helped them in their election campaign and to attain a landslide victory in the state of Punjab after winning elections in New Delhi. The Lok Sabha 2019 election was very important, as Twitter as well as other social media sites witnessed drastic changes in the election trend. The tweets by the prominent leaders underline what the policymakers in Punjab think about different issues, agendas, and problems. We intend to analyse the content that is posted by the prominent leaders of Punjab on their Twitter handles. The main aim is to study the narrative formed by the party in power and how it was supported or challenged by the other parties. Spanning over 12 months, from July 2018 to June 2019, we focused on analysing the monthly changes and trends in the rhetoric created by the eminent leaders and parties in Punjab. The paramount task was to examine the effect of a tweet broadcast by a leader in the public domain.
KEYWORDS: Lok Sab2019 Elections, Social Media Trends, Twitter, Punjab Politics, Political Communication.