Eight prominent Indian female sportspersons, including shuttler PV Sindhu, world champion boxer MC Mary Kom, and London Olympic bronze medallist Saina Nehwal tweeted identical messages thanking Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his Bharat Laxmi initiative this Diwali.
Shuttlers Sindhu and Nehwal, boxers Mary Kom and Nikhat Zareen, wrestler Pooja Dhanda, paddler Manika Batra, boxer Lovlina Borgohain, and sports shooter Anjum Moudgil, all took to Twitter to support the initiative with the hashtag #BharatKiLaxmi.
"I thank @narendramodi for his initiative to honour and empower women this Diwali. Acknowledgement motivates us to work harder and make India proud. #bharatkilaxmi," all eight of them tweeted.
Interestingly, one of the first to thank PM Modi at 2.01 pm, wrestler Dhanda had the word, 'Text:' before her congratulatory message, indicating that she had received a prepared text from someone to tweet instead of sharing her own views on the campaign.
She has since deleted the tweet after it went viral.
Now deleted tweet
Eight Identical Tweets
Using Twitter search with the keywords, "for his initiative to honour #BharatKiLaxmi filter:verified", we found that the eight had tweeted identical messages.
One can view an archive of all eight tweets here - 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 .
Twitteratis react to identical tweets
The identical tweets pushed out in a co-ordinated manner didn't go unnoticed. Several Twitteratis tweeted in reaction, some urging the athletes to tweet their original thoughts on the campaign.
Identical Tweets Part Of Manufactured Campaigns
This is not the first time influencers have been used to push out identical tweets in order to trend a hashtag on Twitter.
Over the last two years, BOOM has done several stories revealing how various arms of the government (Click here , here and here ), political parties (Click here ) and even corporates (Click here ) have used identical tweets to manufacture trends and influence public opinion on social media.
Bharat Lakshmi Campaign
Last month PM Modi had urged people to launch a campaign to honour daughters who have made a mark with their achievements in various fields for public good.
He further suggested in his monthly 'Mann ki Baat' radio address that, "Daughters are considered as Lakshmi in our culture. Can't we felicitate daughters in our villages and cities by holding public programmes?".
Minister of State (Independent Charge) Youth Affairs & Sports,
PM Modi on October 22, 2019, had quote tweeted a video tweeted by Sindhu which had her and Bollywood actress Deepika Padukone supporting #BharatKiLaxmi movement.