Political parties in race to tap social media

Bhubaneswar: With barely a week left for the general elections in Odisha, political parties here are increasingly embracing social media to reach out to voters. They have taken it as a game changer in the ensuing polls, as the number of social media savvy young voters is quite noticeable in the state.

When nearly half of the voters are young, political parties campaigning through social media would definitely have an advantage.

All the major players; Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Biju Janta Dal (BJD) and Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) are leaving no stone unturned to woo the voters through this cost-effective tech-way.

Political analysts observe, though the two-year old AAP is yet to cut much ice in the state political scenario, its presence on social networking site Facebook, (www.facebook.com/aapodisha) has the highest numbers of likes compared its opponents.

Started on November 2012, the fledging party’s likes stands at 21,000, which the party workers say is increasing considerably with each passing day.

“Social media provides a platform to parties to make people aware about their candidates. Apart from messages and campaigns, the aspirants too interact with voters through live question-answer sessions, which is not possible in any other campaigning format,” Sitanshu Mishra, AAP’s state IT coordinator and convener of social media said.

To catch the semi-urban voters, it has gone one step ahead by strategically creating district pages such as www.facebook.com/aapmayurbhanj and www.facebook.com/aapkeonjhar.

The ruling BJD is also not way behind to make its presence felt on the social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. Though the seven-month old Facebook page of the regional party (www.facebook.com/Bijujantadalodisha) has 3,500 likes, it boasts of photographs, achievements and social welfare programmes of the BJD government.

With its Twitter handle @bjd_Odisha, the ruling party on a daily basis is keeping Twitterites updated about its latest activities. Be it poll manifesto or party supremo Naveen Patnaik’s message, it constantly tries to engage party’s followers.

“Undoubtedly, we are spreading party’s message better through social media than any one. Our video clips on youtube depicting BJD government’s schemes such as Re1/kg rice and free mobile to farmers have received overwhelming response,” said Sujit Kumar, BJD’s IT and social media cell head.

But the BJP, which is riding high on its PM nominee Narendra Modi’s wave across the country, has hardly been able to attract young mass through its social media platform (www.facebook.com/BJP4Odisha) in the state.

The FB page of the saffron party created in August 2013 has around 3,000 likes.

On Twitter, the party’s account @BJPOdisha, with regular tweets about its activities, and messages from leaders, has a significant 4,380 followers.

“Looking at the internet penetration in the state, we are hopeful of reaching out to the maximum users this poll season through social media,” said Lalatendu Satapathy, State IT cell convener, BJP.

Interestingly, Odisha Congress does not have significant presence on social media sites.

“After the Congress party’s social media campaign chairman Abhinna Kumar Hota quit , the cell has become sort of defunct,” a party insider said.

Recently, Election Commissioner Dr Syed Nasim Ahmad Zaidi in Bhubaneswar said the political parties’ expenses on social media campaigning will also be included in the poll expenses and the Election Commission of India (ECI) will keep a track of the postings on social media sites.