HYDERABAD: When the clock struck 5 pm on December 5, social media teams of leading political fronts muted their publicity stunts to a bare minimum; except for an odd leader here and there who ignored the EC deadline and continued to appeal for votes, the scene here was rather quiet.
Among the rule-breaker leaders was Congress Kodangal candidate Revanth Reddy who at 5:13 pm posted a 10-second video appealing for votes. The video had a graphical representation of the EVM bearing his name and the vote being clicked for him. The tweet bore the hashtags #ByeByeKCR and #OsthundiManaCongress.
BJP Telangana president Dr K Laxman too posted a picture of an EVM ballot box with his name and photograph graphically presented with an appeal to the people to vote wisely. He tweeted, “Think wisely and vote for the person who is working for welfare of #Musheerabad Constituency people. Come out and cast your vote on 7th December from 7 am5 pm 5pm”.
However, the party’s social media team put up the last of its many posts by 4:07 pm appealing to the people to vote.
BJP’s Serilingampally handle on Twitter posted over 4 promotional videos urging voters to elect G Yogananad, the party’s candidate from the constituency, well beyond the deadline. This continued up to 6:42 pm and some of the posts were retweeted by G Yogganad’s twitter handle as well.
TRS party, which adhered to the deadline, posted its last tweet at 4:58 pm requesting for votes. The TRS top brigade restricted themselves to posting campaign photographs with no appeal for votes.
MIM leader Assaduddin Owaisi refrained from promotional tweets and stuck to retweeting videos posted before 5pm. Even on Facebook, where they have a larger following, they stuck to posting updates about the last campaign and public meeting.
Other offenders include Miryalaguda CPM candidate Krishna Rao Chanamolu who posted a picture of an EVM Ballot with his name at 5:04 pm.
Section 126 of the Representation of People Act prohibits the display of any election material on television or similar material 48 hours before polls conclude. The Telangana is working on an online matrix to keep an eye on violations on social media.