By Shinjinee Majumder

The BJP-led NDA on June 4 returned to power with 293 seats in the Lok Sabha, invalidating the various Exit Poll predictions of a landslide victory with around 400 seats. Even as the Opposition camp saw this as a mandate against the Modi government, key figure in the INDIA bloc Akhilesh Yadav summarized the sentiment by saying, “The sun on BJP’s negative politics has set and now it’s the dawn of the positive, constructive politics.”

The hope of a dawn of positive, constructive politics, perhaps shared by millions in this country, however, took a big hit when it was learnt that the BJP had invited several prominent Right-wing social media influencers, who had been repeatedly found sharing and amplifying communal hate and disinformation targeting the Muslim community, to the oath-taking ceremony held at the Raisina Hills on June 9.

One wonders if the invite to the prestigious event was a reward for the work put in by these individuals, who form the ‘unofficial IT cell’ of the BJP. Throughout the campaign for the Lok Sabha polls, these influencers played their part diligently alongside the official IT cell, amplifying pro-BJP propaganda on social media, usually by villainizing the Muslim community and amplifying falsehoods about the Opposition.

Several of them flaunted their invitation to the event as a sign of legitimacy to their work from the highest quarters. Here is a compilation of such individuals and their antecedents.

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