Chandrababu Naidu fans hiked Telugu Desam’s Facebook likes

Hyderabad: The Telugu Desam on Tuesday clarified on its official Facebook page that the charges of faking Facebook likes is a baseless allegation. It said the official page of Nara Chandrababu Naidu, which had 1.44 lakh followers, was merged with the Telugu Desam’s official page due to which there was an overnight jump in numbers. It said that the FB pages likes went up overnight because of the merging of Mr Naidu’s page with that of the party.

“Among the 1.4 lakh followers of Chandrababu Naidu’s page, 70,000 had already “liked” TD’s official page while another 70,000 were automatically added, swelling the count overnight. This process has been authorised by Facebook and was not carried out using dubious means,” it said.

Our correspondent responds: Telugu Desam didn’t explain how it got 4,482 likes from Turkey, which amounts to 1 per cent of the total FB likes of the party’s page. According to the Ministry of Overseas Affairs, there are only 239 Indians living in Turkey, including 200 NRIs and 39 persons of Indian Origin. This figure is of the total number of Indians and not Telugus. When there are only 239 Indians living in Turkey, how did the party get 4,482 likes from there?  In fact, till recently, the maximum number of Facebook likes for the TD, after India, were from Turkey. More recently, the United States occupied second position. It is interesting to note that from the United States, with 22.4 lakh Indians that includes a large Telugu population, the TD has only 6,199 likes and from the United Arab Emirates, with 17.5 lakh population, the TD has only 1,617 likes. Interestingly, from Azerbaijan, which has 524 Indians living there, the TD has got 166 likes. The party couldn’t explain how it has so many likes from strange countries like Georgia and Bulgaria.

(the link for ministry of overseas http://moia.gov.in/writereaddata/pdf/NRISPIOS-Data(15-06-12)new.pdf).

If one goes by these figures, it has to be believed that Turkish and Kurdish people in Turkey have started liking the Telugu Desam more than the Telugus, Indians and non -Indians in any other part of the world.
Turkey has been under suspicion in the case of former Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and others, where it was alleged that Facebook ‘likes’ emanating from that country were manipulated. There are several online links that show how Facebook likes can be brought from Turkey based groups. The TD also didn’t explain why the party chief’s Facebook page was merged with that of the party for the “overnight” surge in numbers.

The analysis of Facebook page likes is done by socialbakers, an independent organisation that analyses social media statistics. (http://www.socialbakers.com/facebook-pages/192136870799912-telugu-desam-party-tdp)