Vinayak Goverdhane is a 33-year-old agriculturist and party worker of the Nationalist Congress Party from Nasik in northern Maharashtra. In his free time he draws cartoons, lampooning the opposition parties. Till recently, his hobby had a limited audience but after he underwent social media training, his cartoons are now reaching about 60,000 party workers using WhatsApp.
Goverdhane says that his understanding of social media was very limited until he underwent ‘e-karyakarta’ training held by the party three months ago ( karyakarta in local parlance means dedicated party worker).
The training helped him understand the impact of social media platforms on politics and the forthcoming Assembly elections in the State, he said.
For the political parties in Maharashtra, the October election will not only be fought through rallies and television debates but also in the virtual space, through Facebook (FB), Twitter and WhatsApp.
The BJP’s resounding success in the Lok Sabha elections has pushed other parties to open up their war chest for spending on social media strategy and their spin doctors.
The Nationalist Congress Party, which is facing a huge anti-incumbency factor in Maharashtra, has hired a private consulting company, led by a former media man, to chart its course in the turbulent social media. Sizeable funds have been allocated and a large team of journalists, marketing managers and coders are handling the twitter handles and blogs of party supremo Sharad Pawar and other leaders. Till October 2013, NCP’s only presence on the Internet was a dated website. After the company took over media work for the party, it has ramped up the party’s presence on the Net with tweets and daily updates on its website and Facebook page.
Individual pages on leaders are also being regularly revised. After watching BJP’s social media strategy for the Lok Sabha elections, the NCP website is being populated with 6-12 new articles on a daily basis.
“We are not experts in social media but we are making efforts to learn the tricks on the trade,”NCP spokesperson Mahesh Tapase told BusinessLine .
BJP on overdriveBJP, on the other hand, is trying to take its social media strategy to a new level. After using FB, Twitter and WhatsApp very effectively for its campaigns, it is has started using newer platforms such as Local Circles for connecting with its voters.
BJP’s ‘Samvad’ cell, set up for exclusively handling social media connect, has been in action for the last five years.
The Convenor of the cell, Ashutosh Patankar, said that people who are sympathetic to the BJP’s point of view meet online and then their group meetings are being held across the State. In hundreds of such group meetings, the party gets an opportunity to put forth its views more effectively. “It’s a transformation of online conversation to offline,” he said.
“This year, before the parliamentary elections, Mission 272 was established. The mandate of the Samvad cell was to ensure that each party worker gets connected with 100 non-BJP voters using social media. Party asked the workers to change the people’s perception that whatever you do Congress party manages to win the elections every time. And it worked,” Patankar said.
The Congress also has a social media strategy, but its managers were not available for comment in spite of repeated efforts.