NEW DELHI:In order to capitalise on the saffron party’s advantage on the social sites and turn it to the party’s strength in the upcoming Delhi Assembly polls, over 750 volunteers are working full time in three shifts on the BJP media campaign. At the BJP office here, two rooms have been designated as “social media war room”. And they start early in the morning and the work goes on till into the night.
A 20-member-strong central team at the state office coordinates and executes the agenda finalised by Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitaraman to get an edge over rivals in the virtual world.
Away from the public gaze, the saffron party has also set up a “strategy war room” at a flat allotted to senior BJP MP on Humayun Road where all campaigning schedules for top leaders are planned. According to party sources, around 3,000 BJP volunteers are dispatched from here across the 70 constituencies to campaign. The strategy war room is personally monitored by BJP chief Amit Shah. During initial days of campaigning the volunteers were first trained for almost one week where they were taught about Narendra Modi Government’s achievements and on ways to engage with the voters.
At the social media war room, before 11 in the morning, around two dozen volunteers of Delhi BJP IT cell scan all the newspapers, news channels and news portals to present a report to Sitaraman to discuss the party’s online campaign agenda for the day. “The report is presented to Sitaraman in a meeting everyday at 11 am at the Delhi BJP state office,” said Subodh Kumar, member of Delhi BJP’s IT Cell. In the meeting, Sitaraman, with the IT team, decides the party’s social media campaign agenda for the day. The BJP’s main tools are Facebook, Twitter and Whatsapp and it also sends SMSes.
■ Sends over 10 lakh SMSes everyday to voters
■ Trends hastags BJP4Delhi, DelhiwithModi, Yeswecan, KiranBedi4DelhiCM
■ Sends out 30-35 tweets everyday
■ Claims its hastags gets invoked 7000-8000 times
■ Whatsapp used to send out cartoons series like Ajab Kejri ki Gazab Kahani