Dear Reader,Politicians are among the most talkative lot. I have not come across any organisation with a more elaborate communications department or a bigger battery of spokespersons than Indian political parties.Some have made a fortune out of their political careers as spokespersons, rising through the ranks to become Ministers. I once asked a journalist-turned-spokesperson-turned-Minister in the UPA what this “technology” was that he professed, and he told me, with a naughty smile, that it was a one-time-use technique that ended with him, something like the “likho-pheko” (write-and-throw) pen that cannot be refilled. Many have followed suit since.What surprised me was the ease with which spokespersons detached themselves from the parties they represented, and from the ideologies they professed. I watched them switch parties in the blink of an eye and begin to make the exact opposite arguments with equal conviction.One senior communications hand who later joined the BJP offered a brazen explanation. He said he had merely been expressing “that party’s views” when he had passionately defended his previous organisation. He was hardly the only one to astonish me with such a U-turn. This is also a fraternity that routinely crosses the line while defending its party, paying little heed to the dictum, “pahle tolo phir bolo” (think before you speak).But even when communicators succeed, does the communication succeed?Whenever a ruling party fails to address a serious problem or suffers an electoral setback, the most convenient explanation is often the same: “We could not communicate our viewpoint to the people.”That is precisely the refrain after the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) protest at Jantar Mantar, where students and activists marching towards Parliament were lathi-charged by the police on July 20. In a July 24 post on X, Ratan Sharda, who worked with the RSS and the ABVP before authoring several books on the RSS, criticised the BJP’s media team, including its IT cell. He said the Prime Minister “had to put in his all to retrieve the situation, even make a reel at midnight”, which “reflects poorly on BJP communication”. He added that the “BJP Media seems to have no connect with the ground, no feedback mechanism obviously, and did not understand youth anger built over months, not just on NEET. NEET was the last straw.”In the post, which he described as his “personal note” and said had “nothing to do with the RSS”, Sharda also pointed to the “spectacular failure of the BJP media team including IT Cell” and alleged that they “didn’t go beyond memes or whataboutry”. In a television interview, he again described it as a “communication failure”, saying the BJP’s media and IT teams were “not in touch with ground realities”. His central complaint was the party’s “total inability to create a narrative to counter” what he called the “hateful but well-crafted narrative of the Left Ecosystem”.On August 6, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat interacted with Gen Z and Gen Alpha students in Mumbai, days after Narendra Modi reached out, or rather reeled out, to Gen Z on Instagram following the end of the protest at Jantar Mantar. Organisers claimed that Bhagwat’s engagement, part of an annual youth conference, was scheduled well before the protests and was not a reactive outreach exercise, although the timing invites scepticism.I had a sense of déjà vu. Having covered the Congress and the UPA-II government through Cabinet meetings, briefings, press conferences, and interactions with party leaders, I watched the UPA, and the Congress that led it, unravel in public. A party general secretary wrote to his Home Minister expressing disagreement over policy. The Ministry of Environment and Forests sparred openly with the Finance Ministry. An AICC spokesperson rejected, from the party podium itself, a statement made by another AICC general secretary in charge of communications, insisting it was “not a party view”.Union Ministers frequently said things the party later had to distance itself from. Communication had become a free-for-all in the later years of UPA-II. After the Congress’ devastating defeat in the 2014 Lok Sabha election, reduced to its lowest-ever tally at just 44 seats, the explanation was familiar. “We could not communicate our achievements” became the refrain among AICC leaders.Was poor communication really the reason for the Congress’ hat-trick of Lok Sabha defeats since then? Or was it, like “Vikas”, another political alibi? The Aam Aadmi Party has offered much the same explanation after its own setbacks, calling for “an effective communication system”. Even after the 2025 Bihar Assembly election, in which the INDIA bloc, and the Congress in particular, performed poorly, party leader Kripanath Pathak warned that the Congress’s internal communication failures could trigger a crisis.Having covered the BJP closely since 2013, partly because of my roots in the Hindi belt and Modi’s fondness for Sanskritised Hindi, I find myself recognising the same signs once again.Here come the familiar reactions: suddenly a warning not to trust WhatsApp messages; conspiracy theories woven around every protest and every allegation of corruption. But I remember how, in 2014, 2019, and 2024, especially the last two elections, the BJP used social media, particularly WhatsApp, to amplify its messaging, including the calumnious campaign against the Congress and other Opposition parties, epitomised by the “Pappufication” of Rahul Gandhi.As you sow, so you reap. Raising troll armies fluent in abuse and intimidation and running derisive social media campaigns amplified by deepfakes has inevitable consequences.These thoughts were triggered by a recent BJP post on X that sought to counter criticism of E20 fuel. It urged people: “Don’t trust messages being spread on WhatsApp! Rumours of mileage drop from E20 fuel are going around, but the truth of science and engineering is something else.” The government’s own Petroleum Ministry has since acknowledged a marginal mileage drop of 1 to 6 per cent, depending on the vehicle.Responding to the ruling party’s message asking people not to trust messages on WhatsApp, a retired executive said: “Trust them only during elections: 50 lakh WhatsApp groups run by the BJP during the 2024 election,” referring to the BJP’s IT cell having built a massive digital machinery since 2014.Opposition parties and commentators have long mocked the many dubious pseudo-scientific and historical claims by calling their proponents “students of WhatsApp University.”Retiring WhatsApp and moving to Instagram might be an attempt to reach the platform of choice for younger voters. But will social media outreach, however sophisticated, ever compensate for the absence of performance? Can communication substitute for governance? Has WhatsApp become a Trojan horse for the BJP? Is the party discovering, a little late, how difficult it is to dismount the tiger it once chose to ride?It is hard to understand why communicating with voters is so difficult for a ruling party. Or perhaps “communication failure” is simply the easiest explanation when it is governments that stop listening.Until next time, keep your notifications on, but your scepticism even sharper.Anand MishraPolitical Editor,FrontlineCONTRIBUTE YOUR COMMENTS