After anti-BJP parties, the country’s civil society has taken on Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi in cyberspace.
The new attack on the BJP leader comes via a website dedicated to “expose the daily scented droppings of a PR machine” apparently working for Modi.
Named Pheku, a popular Twitter hashtag used to describe Modi, the site went live on Friday.
“Pheku.in is a collective effort at producing not just breaking news and stories related to Gujarat but to serve also as a cleaning house for a vast array of material available on the internet,” said the website’s sponsors in a message.
It also boldly lists the names of people who are sponsoring the site. They range from journalists to filmmakers and professors to actors.
Some are well-known names such as actor Naseeruddin Shah, poet Ashok Vajpayee, activists Harsh Mander and Kavita Krishnan, filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt and artist Vivan Sundaram.
They said the project “began in small discussions in several cities, over emails and social networks, and will grow because of the thousands who feel the same need to examine and shine the cold white light of truth on the man and his lies.”
Pheku.in resembles a usual news website, with series of stories that are critical of the Gujarat government led by Modi.
These are put under categories such as ‘scams/blunders’, ‘economy/development’ and ‘communalism/hatred’.
There are also many caricatures, videos and posters mocking the BJP leader, targeting him for the 2002 Gujarat riots.
Taking on Narendra Modi in the cyber world, his critics have launched yet another website which promises to “track lies” and “expose truths” associated with the Gujarat chief minister.
“The website — www.Pheku.In — by People’s Union of Civil Liberties will serve as an attempt to restore democracy of thought and figures,” NGO PUCL’s vice president Radhakant Saxena said at a launch event here.
“This is an attempt to open up a secular, democratic, non-dogmatic and enlightened space in our democracy,” said Amit Sengupta, a journalist and a sponsor of website, said.
He said the website was being launched from 15 cities across the country.
Earlier this month, another such website Fekuexpress.com, mocking at the BJP leader, was launched, apparently by the Congress.
The website promised visitors two tickets to the film Chennai Express if they could guess which of Modi’s “earlier lies” will he repeat in his next speech.
It offered a list of claims Modi has apparently made in his speeches with rebuttals to each of them.
Pheku.in is not aimed to target any political party, but to make public aware of Gujarat Chief Minister’s claims which were part of personal propaganda and selling himself as a product,” Saxena claimed.
With the Lok Sabha polls due next year, critics of Modi, who was appointed as the head of BJP’s campaign committee, have been taking him on social media.
Congress supporters have used different hashtags starting with Feku on Twitter to ridicule Modi’s development claims.
Earlier, another website ‘www.Fekuexpress.com’ was developed by Congress supporters that ridicules Modi’s claims on Gujarat’s development and promises.
PUCL claimed that while the state brags about huge foreign direct investment inflow, 60,000 small scale industries have been shut in Gujarat in last 10 years.
The state’s total debt was less than Rs 10,000 crore when BJP first came to power in Gujarat in 1995. It multiplied from Rs 45,301 crore in 2001-02 to Rs 1,38,978 crore on December 2012 during the Modi rule, PUCL said in a statement.
Gujarat is at 8th position in agriculture growth which is less than 10 per cent, it said.
A short film “true, hidden picture of Gujarat” was also screened at the event.
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