NEW DELHI: With digital platforms paving the way for new ways to campaign during elections, leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the national capital — taking a cue from Prime Minister Narendra Modi — are embracing smartphone applications and digital campaigns to mobilise support.
Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari is scheduled to speak to residents in all seven parliamentary constituencies of the city as part of his outreach programme on March 27. The idea will also be to galvanise grass root level workers into action.
The Lok Sabha elections in Delhi are slated for May 12. The party will set up chaupals at 28 locations in 14 districts as part of the campaign, being touted as ‘twitter chaupal’. Each parliamentary constituency has two districts. “... The direct interaction with people will help us understand problems and issues. We will urge viewers to post their comments and suggestions, which will be addressed by Manoj Tiwari,” said Neelkant Bakshi, head, media relations, who is also co-incharge of the social media and IT cell of the party’s state unit.
Incumbent MP from West Delhi seat Parvesh Verma went a step further. He launched his own mobile app for better coordination, smooth booth management and to keep the saffron party’s vote bank in the constituency intact. “Apart from tracking booth-level campaigns, the idea is to bring more to polling booths. As the focus of the Centre and the PM is on a digital push, I got this app developed three-four months ago, to keep ground work ready for the elections,” Verma said. Though the BJP is yet to announce its candidates for Delhi, Verma is the front runner for the west Delhi seat.
He said voters’ details, such as their age, sex, and profession of every household in all booths of his constituency had already been uploaded and booth in-charges were going door-to-door to discuss individual issues. The constituency has about 22.6 lakh votes and 2,260 polling booths.
“The app will ensure that we reach out to each voter. On polling day, an SMS with all voters’ details like voting list serial number, booth station number and its address — will be sent to all voters. We will keep a track on voting percentage and send reminder calls urging potential BJP supporters to come out and cast their vote,” the BJP MP said.Union minister Harsh Vardhan, the MP from Chandni Chowk is already running a mobile app which was started in February 2018.
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