Digital technology tools like any computerized system have a viral tendency and
what awaits the Indian Elections in 2019 is a Trump style sophisticated digital
computational propaganda. Such tools are emerging as threats to democracies,
especially like India, with a free media and a booming population, connecting to
the web through smart hand-held devices, increasingly relying on social media for
its news sources. The Indian landscape for digital privacy is also fertile with vast
amounts of data being pilfered, hacked and legally accumulated. If carefully
designed election propaganda based on fake news and bots is launched on the
eve of the 2019 elections who will protect the pillars of Indian democracy? This
qualitative study paper with a triangulation of two methods examines the role of
computational propaganda in elections and undertakes to find the likelihood of
its replication during the Indian general elections in 2019