A look at the use of WhatsApp in Indian state Gujarat's elections, as political parties deploy thousands of “digital warriors” to spam the “people's feed”
Samriddhi Sakunia / Rest of World : Tweets: @restofworld , @samriddhi0809 , @samriddhi0809 , @samriddhi0809 , @restofworld , @nationalfedera4 , @hrishirajanand_ , @clifroz , @ankitlal , @samriddhi0809 , @samriddhi0809 , @cheguwera , @samriddhi0809 , and @samriddhi0809 Tweets: @restofworld : TV ads are a thing of the past. Elections in Modi's home state are now a WhatsApp spam war New from @Samriddhi0809 https://restofworld.org/... @samriddhi0809 : WhatsApp Spam War ahead of #GujaratElections2022 With 50,000 WhatsApp groups, 10k volunteers behind the screen and tons on msges, Political parties have started to communicate with public of #Gujarat through WhatsApp and influence their choices. Stay++ https://restofworld.org/... @samriddhi0809 : Pankaj Shukla, state coordinator for BJP IT cell decides the topic which gets circulated across more than 50k group. “Even before the age of social media, the party used to send mass emails and SMS to woo the voters.” “We aim to target all age groups”, https://restofworld.org/... @samriddhi0809 : Entire process of content has to be carried in a timely manner: First round of content at 9 am, next at noon 3, followed by 6pm and concluding at 9pm. Beyond groups, these campaigners also use WhatsApp's broadcast feature to reach a wider audience. https://restofworld.org/... @restofworld : In Modi's home state of Gujarat, each of the main political parties runs thousands of WhatsApp groups where they push out content daily. As Indian politicians embrace the app as a campaign tool, experts fear misinformation and a breach of voter privacy https://restofworld.org/... @nationalfedera4 : important thread on the changing dynamics of canvassing during elections. social media apps have been a 24X7 propaganda machine. #GujaratElections2022 https://twitter.com/... Hrishi Raj Anand / @hrishirajanand_ : #GujaratElection2022 Inside the WAR ROOMS of the three way contest IT Cells: The backend that uses WhatsApp to its maximum potential. Why WhatsApp is so important across political parties? Is there a privacy breach here? All ques answered in this imp Story by @Samriddhi0809 https://twitter.com/... Clifton D' Rozario / @clifroz : “Currently, in Gujarat, over 10,000 BJP IT Cell volunteers and 50,000 “registered digital warriors” are involved in the creation and circulation of more than 50 new posts each day, targeting over 5 million voters through all social media platforms, including WhatsApp.” https://twitter.com/... @ankitlal : WhatsApp is an indispensable tool in any election campaign today. However, neither the platform nor the regulators are equipped to handle what's going on. WhatsApp is THE most important tool in any political campaign as of date. https://twitter.com/... @samriddhi0809 : @aiyannaishaana believes that people getting added without their consent to these groups is a privacy breach. “These groups are not joined voluntarily by many. There is no telling how those with access to these numbers can then use them in the future, e.g., spam calls, profiling” @samriddhi0809 : Congress is targeting individual communities in its messages, Shah said. That means creating groups and messages for people belonging to the Thakur community, another one for Muslims and other groups belonging to different communities. “We control people's feed,” @cheguwera : Is there any solution for this? @WhatsApp @Meta @elonmusk https://restofworld.org/... @samriddhi0809 : Social media teams for Congress and AAP also described using WhatsApp to indirectly influence voters. Volunteers often create random WhatsApp groups without mentioning their party's name and try to steer the conversation in their favor. https://twitter.com/... @samriddhi0809 : Process of disseminating messages is systematized: Head of the party's social media team finalizes topic; Content circulated to zone-level leaders, who forward to assigned volunteers, they share it with voters via WhatsApp. BJP also send GIFs about their policies. ++ https://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
This is the third act of a pattern researchers flagged back in 2019, when parties were first reported running armies of volunteers pushing misinformation through WhatsApp group chats, then caught using cheap software to send up to 100,000 messages a day and route around the app's five-forward limit (Reuters documented the workaround). What has changed by the Gujarat vote is scale and formalization: the BJP IT cell now fields roughly 10,000 volunteers and 50,000 registered "digital warriors" running groups, while Congress and AAP run their own indirect operations.
The stakes go beyond one state race. Later reporting on how BJP staffers crafted posts for a vast group network aimed at Hindu-majority fears, and on the party using WhatsApp to campaign free from public scrutiny, shows the Gujarat machinery was a template, not an outlier — and experts warn that adding voters to groups without consent is itself a privacy breach with misuse potential for harvested numbers.
First-order effects
- Gujarat voters are now reached through their personal WhatsApp accounts rather than paid TV slots — the headline framing that TV ads are a thing of the past means the BJP's 50,000-group network delivers content at near-zero marginal cost, while Congress and AAP must staff comparable volunteer networks just to stay present in voters' feeds.
Second-order effects
- WhatsApp and Meta face renewed pressure over enforcement, since the 2019 reporting showed parties already circumvent the five-forward cap with bulk-sending software — every tightening forces campaigners to new workarounds rather than off the channel.
- Voter phone numbers circulate inside party-run groups without consent, creating a secondary market risk where contact lists assembled for one election can be reused for fundraising, turnout, or targeted misinformation in later cycles.
Third-order effects
- If closed, encrypted group networks keep displacing broadcast advertising, Indian election oversight loses its main audit point: TV spend is disclosed and traceable, while 50,000 private groups are not — pushing regulators toward platform-level rules they currently lack, and making the platform's distribution choices the de facto arbiter of campaign reach.
The trend: Indian political campaigning is migrating from regulated broadcast media into party-operated WhatsApp volunteer networks, with each election cycle scaling the model faster than platform limits and election law can respond.