In August and September of 2017, as the monsoon left the province of Gujarat in India and the upcoming provincial election gathered steam, the slogan ‘vikas gando thayo chhe’ meaning ‘development has gone crazy’ became one of the most trending topics on social media. It was used to mock the poor state of development across the province. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was taken by surprise because development was the territory in which they claimed to have delivered. Suddenly a campaign targeting them head-on, unexpected to say the least, was proving those claims to be hollow (Langa, 2017). It began spontaneously after a twenty-year-old engineering student posted some photographs of a dilapidated state-owned bus on Facebook (Langa, 2017) with a tagline: ‘Stay Away! Vikas has gone crazy in Gujarat’ (Langa, 2017). The post set off a conflagration of memes mocking the BJP's claim of development. People shared photographs as well as video clips of broken roads and bridges, rickety state-owned buses, garbage dumps on the streets, flooded roads, unfinished construction and records of swine flu-related casualties, all with the catchy tag line of ‘vikas’ (development). What helped was the fact that ‘Vikas’ is a common male name in Gujarati society. Hence, comments about ‘Vikas’ falling in love (HT Correspondent, 2017), getting lost, going mad or having his engagement cancelled because he had gone crazy, resonated (Akhtar, 2024). Adding to the humour and wit, the Hindu festival of Navaratri brought with it new songs on ‘vikas gando thayo chhe’.

The moment was both natural and political. The monsoon downpour of July-August washed away the BJP's roads and highways as well as their claims of world-class infrastructure. The opposition Indian National Congress Party (Congress hereon) latched on to this with the impending provincial assembly elections in December 2017. It became a major embarrassment for the BJP as the party's top brass was forced to respond. However, it was a tough task to create a narrative against the more relatable social media campaign that solely focused on issues such as fuel price hikes, the recently introduced high Goods and Services Tax rates and growing unemployment. This was after the provincial government reeled under the massive agitations by Other Backward Classes (OBCs), Patidar youths and followed by similar Dalit protests.