The Indian elections in 2014 was a kind of semi-digital one. The Prime Minister Narendra Modi seems to be a deep believer in the digital technology and social platforms that take him all along to the country's highest office. During an interview, Modi revealed a few shocking addictions he had. Modi who wakes up quite early starts his day with the news sites that speak about the political changes. 

A close friend of Modi said "There's a history to this. If you look at Mr. Modi, especially after the 200 riots [in the province of Gujarat, where Modi was then chief minister], he's been at the receiving end of the majority of the media. So he saw a big need to communicate directly with the people because the media was not going to be positive to him, it was going to be hostile to him."

It seems Modi feels social media is a necessity. Coming back to the BJP office, Arvind Gupta said that the election campaign was always seen on the mainstream media and it is left upto them if they want to support us or not. However, the social media changed the whole scene.

Sekhar said that Modi dominated the leaders in the West who has no idea what the social media can actually do. He said "Unlike in the West, where the television and the news cycle set the agenda to a large extent, in India at this election ... [Modi] was not reacting all the time. He was defining the debate and then the media would react."

However, the Twitter maina totally changed the fate and publicity of the BJP and could immediately counter the opposition questions if there was anything wrong. A clear example is when Modi filed his nomination he had to reveal the fact that he was married in his teenage after which the Congress leader Digvijay said "Can women of this country trust a man who deprives his wife of her right?" 

Sekhar said "If there had been no social media this would have been a huge mainstream-media controversy. The kind of story the mainstream media would paint was, 'Here was a woman who was abandoned, so how can you talk about women's rights if you didn't show proper responsibility?' and so on. But the moment the news broke out you had people on social media reacting with counter-stories and facts and the issue fizzled out. It was marriage when he was a teenager, it was never consummated; all these things came out."

The impact of the social and digital media on the elections 2014 was clearly known and Sekhar agreed saying "overall the impact was on the conversation and the narrative, not so much in the actual votes, because I don't think digital has penetrated yet to such an extent that it was affecting the outcomes at the polling-booth level. Maybe at the next election." 

So, now you know what's Modi's addiction? 

Adapted from Lance Price's book, The Modi Effect: Inside Narendra Modi's Campaign to Transform India.