Bharat Jodo Yatra: 

The 3500km+ undertaking by the Indian National Congress Party is one of its biggest campaigns in recent times. So far, (literally so far!), it’s been a month since they started on September 7, traveling 720+ km and have traversed through the southern state of Tamilnadu and Kerala.

The aim of this Yatra is to unite India; to come together and strengthen our nation. The Yatra began on 7th September from Kanyakumari and will pass through 12 states, culminating in Jammu and Kashmir – spanning a distance of nearly 3,500 Km over the course of about 150 days. The 3570-km yatra will be a historic event for the Indian National Congress and the entire country. It is the longest march on foot by any Indian in the history of India. Previously, Mahatma Gandhi’s Dandi march was the longest march by foot (389 kilometres in 24 days) between Sabarmati ashram to Dandi (Navasari) in Gujarat state.

Sherlock AI dives into the numbers and let’s see what the numbers have to say

With a total reach of ~15 million over the last week, spread across multiple platforms, the Bharat Jodo Yatra indeed is a trending topic digitally with 20k+ interactions (likes and shares) in the last week alone!

Though, it seems that the popularity of the campaign ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ has shot through the roof since they started, a deeper look at the numbers, tells us otherwise. Though the popularity for the heavily publicized campaign reached its peak popularity during the week the ‘yatra’ started, digital interest and social media chatter has dropped about 25-30% in the weeks post that.

Two very interesting observations include the fact that

• Twitter is among the top mediums with a lion’s share of 64% followed by Instagram (23%) and YouTube (12%).

• Also, the content, tweets and chatter is highly multilingual and regional in multiple vernacular languages! In fact, over half of the digital chatter and content is vernacular (non-English). Though Hindi takes up ~80% vernacular content, Kannada and Marathi each make up a handsome 6-8% of the vernacular digital content

Though there is significant chatter happening about #BharatJodoYatra, the reception isn’t pan-India as what Congress would have liked to have. Most of the searches & digital chatter is concentrated in a few pockets across India.

It’s important to note that Kerala, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, TN & Telangana alone contribute to over 50% of the digital searches and chatter (though the population ratio just corresponds to ~30% of India’s total population). Kerala alone is the strongest contributor with ~20% digital footprint volume!

This naturally leads us to 2 major conclusions- either Congress is making an active effort to focus more on the Southern and Central states or that since, it’s been just a month of Bharat Jodo Yatra (with the INC team just moving from Kerala to Karnataka) the effect of the campaign hasn’t yet completely reached the northern and western parts of the country, yet. Or, it could be a mixture of both!

As the Yatra nears the 1000-km milestone, the next leg of the political campaign will see the Congress workers journeying through Andhra Pradesh followed by Telangana. The final destination of the yatra will see Rahul Gandhi in Jammu and Kashmir.

What exactly is the reason? Or are we going to see more states starting to go a shade darker as the yatra moves up North? We will know for sure in the next coming months! Book a consultation with us or write to contactus@infiniteanalytics.com and let’s leverage the power of data-driven marketing for your brand- real world visitation of consumers, geospatial & mobility data as well as powerful digital trends