Cong on social media overdrive in poll-bound states

By Saiyed Moziz Imam Zaidi

New Delhi, Dec 12 (IANS) The Congress is on an overdrive in the election-bound states and its social media campaign has begun with the party's team setting up control rooms in Punjab, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Goa and Manipur.

The team constituted for each state has already moved to the respective state capitals and have started focusing on the work, trying to be ahead in the social media campaign of the party.

Chairman of the parties social media department Rohan Gupta said: "Our campaign is handled by the party volunteers and we have not outsourced it. We are way ahead of other parties including the BJP and the AAP."

Gupta claimed that the Congress is ahead of the AAP and the BJP in Uttarakhand, Punjab and Goa in social media outreach. The party has appointed Ruchira Chaturvedi for Uttar Pradesh, Hasiba Amin for Goa, Saral Patel for Uttarakhand, Gaurav Pandhi for Punjab and Pranav Vachharjani in Manipur as in-charges of the social media campaign. They have been given teams to work with them.

The work will percolate from the state to the district and assembly levels and the party is making videos trending hashtags as #punjabchangasi, #uttrakhandmangejawab and such others. The teams have set up dedicated websites to highlight the Congress manifesto and get feedback from the public.

The social media department has trained office-bearers in the states at the booth level and armed them with the latest techniques. It will also focus on countering any misinformation campaign on the social media at the source itself to curb its spread.

The party has specially designed campaigns and live streaming of big programmes and speeches and press conferences of the party bigwigs like Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi which is getting good traction and also the people are interacting with the social media volunteers.

The Congress social media team has started making videos for publicity and also to counter the BJP's narrative, said Gupta.

The Congress had launched a 'Join Congress Social Media' campaign after which two lakh online 'warriors' have registered themselves.

"We all know that the government is scared of social media. Those who are against the government are anti-nationals. Through this, we are going to give the youth and the people of the country a platform to raise their voice," Gupta said.

The Congress is out of power in all the states except Punjab and the main rival is the BJP which is ruling the other states.

The Congress started the social media campaign late but picked up gradually and now has full fledged social media teams in the states. It plans to make the teams dynamic at the assembly and booth levels.