CHENNAI: The Chief Minister and AIADMK general secretary J Jayalalithaa on Sunday appointed over 700 office bearers for the party's IT (information technology) wing. It is to take the AIADMK online campaign for the Assembly polls to the grassroots level through social media.
Already there were 14 State-level workers and six more were appointed on Sunday to push the total 720. These office bearers comprised data analysts, PhDs in IT and diploma holders in IT fields.
The party sources said the IT wing recently had a series of district-level meets to discuss how to use social media for the party's growth and review poll strategies. At these meetings, all the 50 party districts were asked to suggest seven to 10 names of tech-savvy persons who could form a ‘task force of volunteers'. In all, over 2,000 persons were interviewed.
The sources said the interviews were in a ‘very corporatised way' to find out whether these ‘future office bearers' had relevant knowledge in IT and social media, and whether they were capable of taking the party's message to the last person in society. "Now every district will have a 14-member IT wing to do microlevel campaign through social media," the sources added.
Much ahead of the poll notification, the IT wing primed its newer version of campaign called WhatsApp Bench on January 1 to rebut the allegations by opposition parties. The WhatsApp Bench sends audio clips that clarify the charges by the opposition parties and take a dig at them. During the past three months, over 100 audio clips were released.
"The WhatsApp conversation is being sent through an exclusive software obtained for AIADMK's campaign and propaganda. Everyday the audio clip reaches around 10 to 12 lakh people," the sources said and added that more innovative steps would follow in the coming days.