Is the world-famous IT cell of India’s ruling party slipping up?

Over 70 per cent respondents to an online poll run by the BJP on its official X (Twitter before Elon Musk took over) handle feel the Congress, if it returns to power, will not reimpose Emergency.

The BJP’s X handle, @BJP4India, started the poll at 6.53pm on Wednesday, June 25, which marked the anniversary of the Emergency imposed by then prime minister Indira Gandhi on the midnight of June 25, half a century ago.

Till 12.30pm on Thursday, the poll had received 23,756 votes. An overwhelming majority – 70.9 per cent – did not believe the Congress would bring back Emergency if it returned to power; 29.1 per cent did.

The Emergency has been a pet issue of the BJP to remind Indians of the suspension of fundamental rights 50 years ago. The Congress has tried to push back on the narrative.

Several people below the poll on the X handle shared images of Modi with headlines about attacks on democracy and judiciary, media control, hate speeches, atrocities on Dalits, backward classes, Muslims and women, misuse of central probe agencies, unemployment, inflation, demonetisation, electoral frauds and others as the “real Emergency.”

The Congress party president and leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge too had spoken on the same lines while addressing a news conference on Wednesday, adding that Samvidhan Hatya Diwas was BJP’s strategy to deflect attention from the real issues plaguing the country under its rule.

On Thursday evening, the Union cabinet adopted a resolution against the Emergency.

“The year 2025 marks 50 years of the Samvidhan Hatya Diwas — an unforgettable chapter in the history of India where the Constitution was subverted, the Republic and democratic spirit of India was attacked, federalism was undermined, and fundamental rights, human liberty and dignity were suspended,” the resolution stated.

Union Home minister Amit Shah who had mooted observing June 25 as Samvidhan Hatya Diwas last year, at an event held in Delhi last evening hailed Narendra Modi.

“Look at how divine justice takes place. A 25-year old boy (Modi) opposed Indira Gandhi’s dictatorship. In 2014, the same person uprooted the reason for which the Emergency was imposed: dynastic politics,” Shah said at the release of a book on Narendra Modi that chronicles his fight to protect democracy during the Emergency.

Shah said Modi had participated in the movement disguised as “sadhu, sardarji, hippie, incense stick seller and a newspaper vendor.”

Online polls do not carry any official weight and the responses can be skewed depending on the biases and bots at disposal. But they may provide an indication on the “mood.”

For the record, the BJP’s official X handle has 23.2 million followers.

Ergo, the conclusion can be drawn that the IT cell has not yet woken up to the fact that the party is being walloped in its online poll.

Will the numbers change? We should know soon.