BENGALURU: To tackle the aggressive social media campaign of the BJP, Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) will deploy close to 55,000 ‘digital youth per booth’. While around 20,000 volunteers are already in place to promote the Congress and its projects in the few months leading to the Assembly elections, the rest of the volunteers are expected to be positioned in a few weeks’ time.
The booth-level volunteers have been given the responsibilities of publicising the contributions of the state government via social media platforms. The youths have been instructed to be active on WhatsApp, Twitter and Facebook - both for local campaigning and dissemination of content regarding the districts.
Srivatsa Y B, president of KPCC social media wing, told Express that Congress has created a structure that starts from the state level and stretches to the booth level.
Campaigns
The party’s social media wing, he said, has taken up three hashtag (#) campaigns. The first is #NavaKarnatakaNirama, which is being used during the chief minister’s yatra of the same name. The second is #DeliveredAsPromised and the third is a campaign against BJP with the hashtag #BariOluBJP.
To a question on local hashtags #NavaTumakuruNirvana or #NavaKolarNirmana, which trended during the chief minister’s campaign at each of these districts, he said local volunteers of the party were trending the hashtags on Twitter and Facebook. “Since Karnataka is considered a unit, the hashtags trended throughout the state due to the activity of our volunteers,” he said.
The social media wing also has a dedicated team generating content about the state government’s achievements in a graphic format.“The content is related to issues at the district or state level,” he added. It had also set up INC Karnataka Digital, a platform for Congress workers of the state, in August last year.
The state BJP unit had decided to continue its extensive social media campaign as it had set up full-time social media teams in each of the 224 constituencies of the state. A mega conclave of social media workers of the party was also held last year and a target of 5,000 WhatsApp groups was set to influence voters.