The Congress has been trying to up its digital game in recent years, but it doesn’t seem to having the best time at it.
Yesterday, the Congress posted a message on its Twitter, asking users to give a missed call to the phone number 1800-120-555-558 if they wanted to be a part of the Bharat Bachao movement. In the political world, these are standard data collection tricks, where parties obtain phone numbers of people who’re sympathetic to their cause, and then bombard them with SMSes and promotional calls.
But the people who did dial the number were in for a bit of a surprise — the number showed up as “Ch*tiyon ki Fauj (C*nt army) on TrueCaller. Twitter was soon flooded with people sharing screenshots of their experiences.
It’s not hard to guess how a situation like this would’ve unfolded. Some internet pranksters, having seen the Congress advertise the number, would’ve saved it as “Ch*tiyon ki fauj” on their phones. Once enough people stored the number in this fashion, Truecaller started displaying the number as “Ch*tiyon ki fauj”. And once this bit of news went viral, it’s possible that even more people will save the number as “Ch*tiyon ki fauj” as a lark, which could cause the number to be up for some time.
Modern political battles aren’t just fought on ideas, geopolitics, and determining the futures of nations — they’re also fought through names on Truecaller.
