Congress’ PR stunt to defame the country? After ‘Shirtless Protests’, social media influencers say Congress offered them money to run down the AI Summit

The Congress party’s politics has often thrived on running down the country’s progress. Even before the dust had settled over the Youth Congress’s “shirtless protest” during the AI Summit, a fresh controversy has erupted, this time exposing what social media influencers are calling the Congress party’s dirty PR playbook.

Several Instagram influencers have gone public, claiming that Congress’s PR machinery approached them with hefty cash offers to create negative videos against the Summit. The alleged objective was not criticism or debate, but a calculated attempt to tarnish India’s image on a global platform purely for political mileage.

The ‘dirty game’ and the cash offers

According to claims now going viral, influencers were offered anywhere between ₹10,000 and ₹40,000 to push negative content. Some creators have even shared screenshots of messages that allegedly said, in effect: “Ask for whatever you want just defame the AI Summit.”

The core agenda, they say, was to peddle a narrative that all investments linked to the Summit would only benefit a select few industrialists, particularly Ambani and Adani.

The idea was to reduce a national, future-facing technology event into a cynical story of “two businessmen’s profit,” and thereby mislead the public and undermine confidence in India’s development push.

Influencers hit back: “At least do some research”

But the plan appears to have backfired. Several influencers refused to become part of what they called “paid propaganda” and instead chose to expose the approach publicly. Many of them pointed out that the AI Summit does not belong to any political party, it belongs to the country.

Calling out the Congress PR team, they said that if they had done even a little homework, they would have known that the event is about positioning India as a leader in future technologies, not about serving any narrow corporate or political interest.

The latest development in the issue is that the Indian Youth Congress has called the claims of the influencers ‘fake’, and has threatened to sue them. “False propaganda by certain individuals/influencers has been noted. Delete the defamatory content within 24 hours”, the IYC legal cell has posted.

Written by OpIndia Staff
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