Stepping up its preparations for the 2014 polls, Gujarat Congress, which had marginal presence in the virtual world so far, has decided to take on Chief Minister Narendra Modi-led BJP's onslaught on the social media by creating its own 'cyber army' in the state.
"We will be creating our cyber army to counter the BJP onslaught on social media which has become important in the run up to the 2014 general elections. We have been directed by the central party leadership to do this, and we were also trained for this," Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi said.
"The purpose is to have five to six active people at village level and every area across cities. They will form a taluka team and city team. They will in-turn form a regional team and ultimately all of them will be part of state's cyber army," he said.
"We held a training workshop for 500 cyber army workers in the city yesterday. We will continue to hold such workshops regional level, district levels and taluka levels to train the cyber army," Doshi said.
"The focus of our training to this cyber army is to spread in social media, the achievements of the UPA government at the Centre, to bring out the falsehood spread by the BJP in the virtual world, and to bring ground realities and problem of people to the fore," the spokesperson added.
He said the Congress's cyber army will be made up of party workers and well-wishers, while the BJP social media drive is run by paid private parties.
"In a short time, positive results are coming as we have been able to counter the BJP on social media effectively. We are able to directly connect with the people through social media," he said.
The BJP, on the other hand, is well ahead of the state Congress in tapping the social media and connecting to youths who have large presence in the virtual world. BJP's information and technology cell is also working hard to woo the youth to join Modi's cyber army.
"Our main objective is to connect people and especially youths to CM Narendra Modi. Modiji has super presence in the social world by his website, his Twitter and Facebook accounts which draw the youth to him," Rajika Kacheria, who is heading the BJP's IT cell, said.
In the recent past, BJP's IT cell has made around one lakh members and membership drive is on to persuade youth in large number to join the BJP.