HYDERABAD: WITH less than 10 days to go for the GHMC polls, political parties, armed with laptops and mobile phones, have amped up their social media campaign.
Opposition parties, Congress and BJP, are using short videos, memes, cartoons and newsclips to target the ruling party and its supremo K Chandrasekhar Rao. In a video being shared by both Congress and BJP leaders over WhatsApp, the Chief Minister is seen asking citizens to chose between a “wonderful Hyderabad” and an “inferno”. The statement is followed by newsclips about TRS corporators allegedly attacking people, resorting to corruption and creating nuisance.
It is learnt that a day after the GHMC election notification was announced, the BJP held a closed-door meeting with its social media volunteers from across the city. The volunteers were asked to identify ward-level problems and push the same on social media, blaming the TRS-led government. The BJP, which is trying to emerge as the primary opposition party in Telangana, has also set up a social media war-room in the party’s State-headquarters.
As part of their campaign strategy, the BJP has been tweeting hashtags including #ByeByeTRS #ChangeHyderabad #WakeUpGHMCVoter. The Congress, meanwhile, has been using a more sombre hashtag #GHMCWithCongress. The BJP has already created several ward-level WhatsApp groups to disseminate poll content, but the Congress is lagging behind in the same.
According to sources from both the parties, they are creating ‘official’ content for their official social media handles and ‘unofficial’ content for WhatsApp groups, without leaving a trace of the message’s source.
“We are making two categories of content, one with the party symbol and another without the party symbol. But we are not spreading false information,” said one of the party’s social media in-charge.