The Congress and the UDF Government might not have recovered yet from the ‘sun stroke’ of the solar scam but in a bid to clear the air the Congress party in the state is becoming tech savvy.
After Chief Minister Oommen Chandy started using a mobile phone of his own as a fallout of the solar scam, the Congress party would now open a 24x7 communication centre at the KPCC office here and would aggressively use social networking sites for an image makeover in the solar scam.
“Campaigns on social networking sites against the government and the Congress party on the solar scam have given an edge to the Opposition. “A recent survey conducted by an agency for Congress had pointed out that social networking sites play a key role in opinion generation among people.
“In Kerala, seven districts, including Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram, were covered and people here are very active on the sites. The aim is to use social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to reach out to maximum number of people,” said Ranjit Balan, IT advisor of KPCC. The decision comes close on the heels of the AICC’s own social media platform, ‘Khidki’, to discuss and establish the party’s viewpoint on several contemporary issues as well as to exchange ideas on government policies. “After the live google hangout of KPCC president Ramesh Chennithala to discuss Kerala Yatra, there were more than seven lakh hits on his Facebook page. The success of the social media campaign was reported to Anand Adkoli who is in-charge of the party’s preparations for its foray into the social media which was received well,” he said.
Congress spokesperson Pandalam Sudhakaran said that the party would launch an online campaign to make its stand clear and for an overall image makeover.
“A 24x7 communication centre would be opened in the KPCC office. The AICC had also given clear cut direction and support for actively participating in the social networking platform as it would also help in the run up to the general election in 2014,” he said. Recently, the suspension of three government employees from service for posting and sharing comments against the Chief Minister on Facebook in solar scam had become a topic of discussion. Premanand Thekkekkara, a last grade employee of the General Administration Department, Chandraprasad, legal assistant of Law Department, and R Suku, KSEB deputy chief engineer were placed under suspension for posting and sharing comments against the Chief Minister.