Why Congress has made Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp accounts mandatory for ticket seekers in Madhya Pradesh
The Congress party’s move to make every ticket seeker in Madhya Pradesh will have to have a Facebook page with at least 15,000 likes, a Twitter handle with at least 5,000 followers and a WhatsApp group connected with booth-level workers is an attempt to catch up with the ruling BJP, which for now seems to be ahead in the social media war in the run up to the state elections.
The state Congress' letter to this effect that has been sent to all ticket seekers, all district presidents, town and city presidents and office-bearers has even directed the recipients to re-tweet and share everything on the official Congress handles on Twitter and Facebook.
The move comes after the BJP social media presented Shivraj Singh Chouhan as Bahubali in a spoof video who went about smashing the entire Congress leadership, including Jyotiraditya Scindia, Congress' campaign committee chief.
The video went viral and was shared across platforms and eventually made it to the national headlines.
The Congress tried to hit back by making a similar spoof video in which state Congress president Kamal Nath jumps around as a hulk and smashes Chouhan into pieces. Congress social media strategists pushed the video across platforms, but it failed to match the buzz created by the Bahubali video.
According to Congress insiders, the video was well received for its content that was even picked up by local news channels.
The BJP's IT cell boasts of 65,000 "cyber warriors" who have been tasked with running the party's online campaign.
The Congress, on the other hand, claims to have around 4,000 cyber warriors who are called 'Rajiv ke Sipahi' and the latest directive is perhaps aimed at decreasing the margin between the cyber warriors of the two sides.
Both parties claim starting over one lakh WhatsApp groups through which the youths are being targeted.
The BJP, according to an IT cell insider, had managed close to 65,000 WhatApp groups during the Gujarat elections that helped the party amplify their leader’s message during the crucial last phase of electioneering.
The party now plans to take this to the next level and is talking about 430 such groups in each of the 230 constituencies. The party aims to maximise its contact with the voters with ideologically driven content.
The Congress too claims of running over one lakh WhatsApp groups with at least two groups in each of the 65,000 polling booths. The Congress also claims of setting up groups at the divisional level with the party’s divisional IT coordinators as the group administrators.
The divisional coordinators are connected with the district coordinators who in turn are connected with the Assembly coordinators who pass on the desired message to the booth’s group administrators.
The party claims that its WhatsApp group pyramid is designed in such a manner that a message from the top takes around 55 minutes to spread to all booth-level groups, but the impact is yet to be tested.
Until the final test, that is due by the end of the year, cyber warriors, many of them fresh out of technology institutes, will continue to bolster their campaign with 'cheaply' made spoof videos.