Shivam Shankar Singh

“The BJP remained one step ahead of its competition, though, and found a new weapon that offered much better targeting than Facebook ever could—WhatsApp. Using it, a specific message could be sent to one group of people and a completely different message to a different group of people. By making use of people’s pre-existing biases, individuals could be turned into supporters by a party through messaging that would make them believe that the party had exactly the same goals as they did. The platform would allow the BJP to appear vehemently anti-cow slaughter to voters in Uttar Pradesh while making it appear ambivalent towards it to voters in the northeast. Or aggressively pro-Hindutva to some voters and solely development-oriented to others. Such was the magic of targeted messaging on WhatsApp.”
― Shivam Shankar Singh, How to Win an Indian Election: What Political Parties Don’t Want You to Know

“A politician needs the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn’t happen.”
― Shivam Shankar Singh, How to Win an Indian Election: What Political Parties Don’t Want You to Know