Will Twitter Be the Kingmaker of 2019 Lok Sabha Elections?

Country - India; Parties Considered - the Indian National Congress (INC) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the two major national political parties; Time period considered - Feb 1, 2019 to Feb 10, 2019. Research questions. The research was intended to find answer for the following questions: 1. Which political party uses Twitter extensively? 2. What were the major issues discussed by political parties in Twitter? 3. Were the issues tweeted by political parties and politicians reflect the ground situation? 4. What was the most prevalent sentiment in the Tweets made by political parties? Findings: Results show that the BJP has a stronger twitter base and uses twitter extensively to connect with its followers when compared to the INC. The topics discussed by the both the parties encompassed a wide range of issues and schemes ranging from agriculture to national security. The issues and schemes raised by the INC is seen to have more resonance among people than the issues and schemes raised by the BJP i.e., the schemes and issues raised by the INC appeared to be more relevant and impactful on people’s lives than the ones raised by the BJP. Despite the BJP enjoying a stronger follower base in Twitter alongside with its extensive usage of Twitter to connect and interact with its followers when compared to the INC it seems to be trailing behind the INC in the race to 2019 assembly elections as there is almost a 30% gap between it and the INC when it comes to the resonance enjoyed by the issues and schemes proposed by them which at the end of the day would prove instrumental in determining people’s electoral preferences. So, based on the analysis of the data collected in this study the INC seems to have a clear edge over the BJP in forming the next government at the centre. Neutral sentiment was found to be the most prevalent sentiment in the tweets posted by the both the parties overall but since neutral sentiments are assigned a sentiment score of 0, they don’t affect the cumulative sentiment of all the tweets analysed which was found to be negative in both the cases of the BJP as well as the INC.研究基本信息：地域为印度；涉及党派为印度国民大会党（Indian National Congress, INC）与印度人民党（Bharatiya Janata Party, BJP）这两大全国性主流政党；研究时段为2019年2月1日至2019年2月10日。 研究问题： 本研究旨在解答以下四个问题： 1. 哪一政党更广泛地使用Twitter平台？ 2. 两大政党在Twitter上讨论的核心议题是什么？ 3. 政党及政治人物在Twitter发布的议题是否反映了基层实际状况？ 4. 各政党发布的推文中最普遍的情感倾向是什么？ 研究结果： 结果显示，相较于印度国民大会党（INC），印度人民党（BJP）拥有更为庞大的Twitter受众基础，且更广泛地利用Twitter与支持者建立联结。两大政党讨论的议题覆盖范围广泛，涵盖从农业到国家安全等各类议题与政策方案。 印度国民大会党（INC）提出的议题与政策方案，相较于印度人民党（BJP），更能引发民众共鸣，即其推出的政策与议题对民众生活的相关性与影响力均更胜一筹。 尽管印度人民党（BJP）不仅拥有更庞大的Twitter受众基础，且相较印度国民大会党（INC）更广泛地运用Twitter与支持者互动联结，但其在2019年议会选举的角逐中却落后于INC：二者所提出的议题与政策方案的民众共鸣度差距近30%，而这一共鸣度最终将成为影响选民选举意向的关键因素。 基于本研究收集的数据分析，印度国民大会党（INC）在组建新一届中央政府的竞争中拥有显著优势。 整体而言，两大政党发布的推文中最普遍的情感为中性情感，但由于中性情感的情感分值为0，因此不会影响所有分析推文的累计情感倾向；经分析，印度人民党（BJP）与印度国民大会党（INC）的推文累计情感倾向均为负面。