With the COVID-19 lockdown forcing people indoors, political parties and State government offices are now getting used to holding virtual meetings, sometimes with hilarious initial consequences, as people figure out how these apps work. Political parties, especially, face such a challenge, as their cadre on the ground across the State are not familiar with such technology.
The Tamil Nadu Congress and BJP units seem to have embraced this change quickly during the lockdown. While the Congress held a meeting of its district presidents, MPs, MLAs, and other wings of the party, with their State president K.S. Alagiri on April 6, the BJP took to video conferencing from the day Section 144 was imposed in the State .
“It was a big challenge, bringing everyone together at a specific time. The meeting with Mr. Alagiri started at 11.30 a.m. and continued till 3.45 p.m. Initially, the challenge was to teach our people how to use the app. So, we had a test run for two days with various people in our party so that we were prepared for the meeting on April 6. Since some of our leaders are also quite elderly, they had to be taught how to use the app, and some of them have only normal mobile phones, not smartphones. So, those issues had to be fixed,” Lakshmikanthan, IT cell chairman, TNCC, told The Hindu .
‘Big success’
Mr. Lakshmikanthan said the meeting was a big success, as more than 120 members including MPs and MLAs, participated. “For some it was very emotional, as they were able to see many of their fellow party cadre’s faces in one place for the first time since the lockdown was imposed. Also, everyone on the call got to speak and were very involved, compared to a meeting at our party headquarters where the backbenchers might just be talking among themselves without listening to the speakers on the stage at times,” he said.
The BJP, however, has found the going a bit easy as the party has been leveraging the potential of video conferencing, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressing cadre and holding meetings through this way in the past few years. The State unit sent out a step-by-step guide to its cadre on how to install a video conferencing app, the steps required to set up an account, and how to login to a meeting. On Tuesday, State unit president L. Murugan held a press conference with the media via one such app. “He has been regularly holding such meetings every day with our cadre here and in other districts,” A.N.S. Prasad, convenor, Media Cell, said.
Elaborating, C.T.R. Nirmal Kumar, state convenor, IT and social media, said Mr. Murugan and other senior leaders held a call with the State in-charge, Muralidhar Rao every evening. Mr. Murugan has also held large meetings with district cadre on the video conferencing app. “We also had Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman address our cadre on the app a few days back and motivated them. We have also completed meetings with various district units and the RSS on food distribution and other relief materials during the lockdown,” he said.
These meetings, however, are not without hiccups. During the Congress meeting, Karti Chidambaram accidentally left the meeting and tried to enter the virtual meeting room but since the number of participants had reached its limit of 100, he had to wait for sometime, while one of the team members, who was part of the team that set up the meeting, had to log out and Mr. Karti entered the meeting again.
During Mr. Murugan’s video conference with the media, a party cadre logged in using the meeting id that was forwarded to him by mistake. While Mr. Murugan was taking questions, this cadre too started speaking, startling Mr. Murugan, before they resolved the situation.
Government departments
In the State Secretariat too, a few departments have already taken to the video conferencing apps.
“It’s not just Ministers holding VC [video conferencing] with officials in remote locations. Even the lower rung of the Secretariat have joined the bandwagon already,” a Section Officer said.
But, what are they discussing when the State is in a lockdown? “Many of our projects with funds to be sanctioned from the Centre have to be finalised,” the officer said.
With Central Ministers returning to office in the past two days, they are expecting States to finalise projects so that tenders could be floated soon after the lockdown is lifted, he said.
Of course, unlike tech-savvy officers, many remained uninitiated until they had to join these virtual meetings. “It was initially a challenge. It took a while for me to even log in. But, I hope to get over that stage soon,” he said.
One of the challenges they faced nowadays was, another officer said, “We had to use masks now as a few of us are in the room and hence our voice is not audible to other parties and vice versa.”
Santhosh Babu, Chairman & Managing Director, Tamil Nadu Handicrafts Development Corporation Ltd, said he was already holding virtual meetings with staff members. “The TNHDC has 24 offices across India. These are connected by an ERP [Enterprise Resource Planning software] and hence file movement is online, and we are using a video conferencing app for meetings,” he said.
