Akhilesh Yadav is desperate to look tech-friendly: Why it's not working
In the run-up to the Uttar Pradesh polls, the Samajwadi Party is using the allure of technology, namely information technology, to woo the public. With this in mind, chief minister Akhilesh Yadav launched the Samajwadi Akhilesh Mobile Application. At the launch, Akhilesh said the new app would be an instrument in the hands of the SP workers to publicise the good works of the government and the party. In fact, many of the CM's managers got active soon after it was launched and a campaign was started dubbing Akhilesh as "Digital CM".
Akhilesh seems to be taking his digital role quite seriously. This app launch follows his publicity drive last week, where the CM announced that the tourism department of his government has opened a Twitter handle for the Taj Mahal - a first for any historic building. And if government sources are to be believed, IT experts are being roped in to provide innovative solutions to problems plaguing the state - especially the farming community.
Akhilesh's IT drive has been much appreciated but one has to wait and see. The man who many in UP had believed would usher in change in the last Assembly polls, has often been undone by his father. And true to form, Mulayam Singh's statement last Tuesday, where he said that four people could not possibly gang rape a woman, undid all the goodwill that his son was trying to build up.
Akhilesh needs to understand that while social media efforts may be laudable, it cannot hide ground realities. Prime Minister Narendra Modi won the election because of his track record as Gujarat chief minister and social media only enhanced that image.
In UP, it is worth remembering that over ten lakh digital diaries carrying a theme song on the SP president "Mann Se Hain Mulayam, Aur Irade Loha (Mulayam is on our minds because of his steel-like conviction)", were distributed across the state just before the Lok Sabha elections.
This didn't help the SP win even one seat. Besides Azamgarh, from where Mulayam himself contested, they could save just four family fiefdoms - Kannauj, Badaun, Firozabad and Mainpuri. Clearly, anger against corruption, the dwindling law and order situation in the state and a perception that the SP leaders were shielding the accused, as in the case of Singh played a significant role.
This is something that will require more than digital technology to fix. On the contrary, the digital world is turning the heat up on the SP. For example, when the CM was launching the Samajwadi Akhilesh App, Saket Chaudhary, and district working committee member of the SP in Saharanpur was manhandling Mahaveer Singh, an agriculture scientist. Someone shot it on his mobile phone and posted on social media. Such incidents have been reported from almost every district in last three years and in the majority of such cases, the videos went viral on social sites.
Akhilesh needs to understand this and take the bull by the horns, which means taking some very unpopular decisions - as far as his party is concerned. But since his father is in the centre of controversy, it is unlikely that any action will be taken to curb errant politicians in the party. So despite the digital makeover, nothing has really changed on the ground.