HYDERABAD: Recently when the TDP tried to blame the BJP for not according special status to Andhra Pradesh, the saffron party hit back at its ally not by holding a press conference, but by using WhatsApp messenger. The BJP placed all the facts with regard to Centre’s aid, released to AP ever since bifurcation, in its WhatsApp group at that time.
Similarly, Congress leaders in AP and Telangana are aggressively using WhatsApp to criticise the policies of ruling establishments in both the states, by posting their views.
After making their presence in social media, all political parties in the two Telugu speaking states, are now vying with one another to appear on the smart phones of people by taking to instant messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Telegram.
Parties are now competing to create groups in WhatsApp and Telegram to propagate their ideology as well as to campaign against their rivals.
All the major parties such as BJP, Congress, TRS, TDP and Left, which have separate websites, now-a-days are using messaging apps as a platform to post text messages, images, audio and video messages to attack their political rivals.
“We are taking measures to be in touch with our party cadres through messaging Apps. Our party has created an exclusive group for all the party workers on WhatsApp to disseminate information,” TDP leader and AP Warehousing Corporation chairman LVSRK Prasad, who looks after party’s media affairs, told Express.
TDP has created several groups for its leaders, based on their party positions. For instance, there is an exclusive group in WhatsApp for all the politburo members of the party. Likewise, each minister has his or her own group in which views and deeds of that particular minister will be shared.
In the same fashion, BJP, YSRC, TRS and AIMIM too created various groups in the WhatsApp platform to share information to their party workers.
YSRC leaders have also become tech-savvy and if anybody in the party wants to share information with their boss YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, they will first WhatsApp him. They will call him over phone only after that.
Of all the ministers in AP and TS, Telangana municipal administration minister KT Rama Rao is most active on social media and also on WhatsApp platform.
After KTR, AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi is another politico, who always makes himself available to his party cadres through messaging apps.
Interestingly, Congress Party, which has various factions within it both in AP and TS, has several groups on WhatsApp.
For example, party’s Telangana headquarters, which is located at Gandhi Bhavan here, runs its own group in the WhatsApp, whereas TS Congress Legislature Party (TS-CLP) runs another group.
Displaying the heterogeneous nature of the party, every former minister such as Ponnala Lakshmaiah and DK Aruna to every MLA of the party in TS, have their own group on this messaging app.