Pune: The stereotypical dubious ‘WhatsApp forward' brigade usually restricts their posts to sparkly ‘good morning' images with flowers, tips to improve digestion or often unfounded historical and cultural references, say users at the receiving end. Now however, come election time, a host of these habitual message senders have transformed from sunrise greeting enthusiasts into self-appointed political strategists for everyone on their contact lists, regular — mostly younger generation — users of the messenger app claim. These freshly anointed ‘ digital warriors ' — armed with forwarded messages and WhatsApp statuses filled with questionable claims — have expanded their daily routine to dish out piping hot political commentary .
"An uncle who lives in our society used to send typical pictures of roses with dewdrops at 8am. Now, he sends conspiracy theories about opposition parties even earlier, at 7am," said Raul Joseph, a 23-year-old city resident, who added that he has started opening his WhatsApp only at noon to avoid a barrage of largely unverified political messages at dawn. Anasuya Basu, a 20-year-old college student, told TOI, "When I wake up, I see over 100 messages in my family group with all these uncle and aunties trying to prove how each one's ridiculous conspiracy theory is correct.
The messages are downright absurd — right from how reading someone's name backwards spells something evil to long paragraphs about why we should vote for a particular pa.