The official Facebook fanpage of Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi

The Nitish-Modi war is now going to be virtual.

Even though chief minister Nitish Kumar avoids making a direct attack on his Gujarat counterpart, Narendra Modi, the JD(U) students’ wing has decided to take the war to Facebook.

Ranjan Kumar, the state president of Chatra Samagam, the students’ wing of JD(U), said: “By the end of December, we will open 2 lakh Facebook accounts in which we will spread the message of Nitish and his works. People should know the extent of development projects in the state initiated by him.”

About the reason of taking such a decision, he claimed that Modi is trying to influence the minds of people through “false messages” in the virtual world. “It is an open challenge to the person sitting in Gujarat, Modi, who is spreading false messages and trying to influence the youths. With the help of social media, he is also trying to make a division in the country. Our drive would be to counter him and his followers,” said Ranjan.

Recently, Nitish attended the foundation day of Chatra Samagam as chief guest. Nitish does not have fascination towards social media — neither he has any account on Facebook nor Twitter — but he has a blog, which was last updated on October 10, 2011. A few months back when The Telegraph asked Nitish why he did not update his blog, he said tight schedule and work pressure did not allow him to use social media forum. But Modi is very active on Twitter and Facebook ever since he has joined the platforms in 2009. He not only shares news and development of his won state but also updates his followers about his own writings and details about his tours.

Modi’s fascination towards social media can be understood from this fact that he shares pictures for his followers. He is also known for updating his Facebook profile page regularly to keep the people aware about all the latest happenings in Gujarat. He keeps on tweeting on his Twitter account as well.

The Samagam chief denied that Bihar is following Modi. “One important aspect should be very clear, we are not following Narendra Modi. We believe in certain ideology and move forward while taking everyone together. Our party thinks about everyone, not like Modi who is just concerned about a particular section of people and ignore the minorities. The social media is a big platform and it has given platform to common man to raise their voice but that does not mean to create confusion in the country.”

He added: “Through social media, Bihar will teach him a lesson and will also counter him on this. Besides spreading the work of our leader, we will also help students. Information regarding the exam dates, results, problems at campus will also be discussed on Facebook. Let this practice begin and you will see the results.”

The JD(U) state president, Bashishtha Narayan Singh, said: “It will create an academic atmosphere in the state. It does not matter whoever comes in front of this initiative — Modi or anybody else. The students’ wing will surely accept the challenge and will handle it accordingly.”