“Have you ever heard about the Zubin Irani land scam or the Adani land scam of the Bharatiya Janata Party,” asks Mahesh, an ardent Congressman at Subhash Nagar in Mandya.
On Thursday, Mr. Mahesh was busy searching for media reports and ‘evidence’ against the BJP, constantly posting links on such alleged scams in WhatsApp groups. He is one of the many such Congress workers in town who are using social media and messaging platforms to woo voters for his party.
Even before the electioneering for the byelections to Ramanagaram Assembly segment and Mandya parliamentary constituency has gained momentum, both members of the ruling combine and the Opposition BJP are using social media to attract voters. “We will form a minimum of 1,500 WhatsApp groups to expose the alleged anti-people policies and scams of the Modi government,” Mr. Mahesh said.
‘Going all out’
A senior Congress leader in Ramanagaram said the party has made nearly 5,000 posts against the BJP. Speaking to The Hindu over phone, he said the Youth Congress and Seva Dal workers would extensively use social media platforms to go all out against the BJP.
Similarly, according to sources in the JD(S), the party is gearing up to use WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook and the like to win electoral battles. A taluk panchayat member from Pandavapura admitted that the JD(S) was lagging behind in using social media, but now nearly 300 WhatsApp groups with names such as ‘HDD Fans’ and ‘HDK Fans’ had been formed.
As for the BJP, though it does not have a strong base in Mandya, the party is determined to use the likes of WhatsApp and Facebook to strengthen its network, a party leader said.
“Party workers frequently receive posts from the functionaries at the State unit and the IT cell. A good number of youngsters have attended training programmes on the utilisation of social media to woo voters and to tackle the tactics of opposition parties,” he said.
