How Bengal BJP's ‘WhatsApp Army’ contributed to party's victory
KOLKATA: The BJP gave a big fight in West Bengal winning 18 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats, bringing down the Trinamool Congress's tally from 34 to 22. The vote share of the BJP in the state stood at close to 40 per cent, an increase from 17 per cent in 2014. Keeping in line with the party's "Look East" policy, 40 per cent of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's campaigning was held in Bengal. BJP president Amit Shah also frequented his visits to the state.
The catalyst driving the PM-Amit Shah campaigning was the carefully coordinated effort by its social media team in the state.
Tucked away in a corner of North Kolkata is a three-bedroom flat that is the nerve centre of the social media cell of the BJP.
The election war room that began operations in 2018 comprised 10,000 people, who worked round-the-clock over the last eight months. Their primary target - to score at least 23 seats in Bengal.
Ujjwal Pareekh, a professional with a tech firm handling the account of a London-based Formula 1 team, leads the BJP war room. He is the convener of the BJP's IT cell in Bengal and takes orders from Amit Malviya, BJP's in-charge of national information and technology cell, and passes it down to his team.
Mr Pareekh said it wasn't easy to run the social media campaign in the state where the Trinamool Congress sent out notices to every dissenter. "We were constantly under threat. If any of our IT cell workers posted anything on Facebook, the very next moment they would get a call from the cyber cell. So what we did was, we carried most of our campaign through WhatsApp."
At least 50,000 WhatsApp groups were created in a bid to reach three crore smartphones in Bengal. Share-Chat was also used to send out messages in Bengali.
The official Twitter handle had two crore impressions in the last 60 days, Mr Pareekh said.
"There was a trickledown effect. Amit Malviya ji guided me; I did the same to the 42 people in-change at the Lok Sabha level. They in turn trained 294 people in the assembly level. There on, we had mandals, and finally the sakti kendras - a set-up to strengthen booth-level preparations. There are close to 13,000 sakti kendras, of which at least 10,000 of them had an IT team".
Along with their help in campaigning, the WhatsApp army ensured Mamata Banerjee's anger at people chanting "Jai Shri Ram" or memes of her comments went viral, he said.
"I have conducted over 80 workshops in the last 16 months across West Bengal to list out the dos and don'ts. Clear instructions were given that they were not supposed to spread information that was not genuine. All we needed to do was expose the failures of the Mamata Banerjee government, and put forward the PM Modi sarkar's agenda to the people," Mr Pareekh added.
While NDTV got a sneak peek into all that went into "2019 mein half" campaign, the 39-year-old IT cell head says the target for the team is now "2021 mein saaf", or halved in 2019 and wiped out in 2021. "For that, plans are already in place. We have reached around 45,000 booths with our messages in 2019. Come 2021, we want to dominate the conversation in all of 77,000 booths in Bengal," Mr Pareekh said.
courtesy: ndtv.com
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Sujit Nair raises concerns over speculation of DMK-AIADMK understanding to block TVK
Chennai: Journalist and political commentator Sujit Nair has expressed concern over speculation that the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam could explore a post-poll understanding to prevent Vijay-led Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam from forming the government in Tamil Nadu.
In a social media post, Sujit Nair said the election verdict in Tamil Nadu reflected a clear public demand for political change and argued that the mandate should be respected irrespective of political preferences.
Referring to reports and political discussions surrounding a possible understanding between the DMK and AIADMK, he said he hoped such developments remained only speculative conversations and did not turn into reality.
Nair stated that if such an alliance were to take shape, it would raise serious questions about ideological politics in the country. He said TVK had emerged through a democratic electoral process and that the legitimacy to govern in a parliamentary democracy comes from the people’s verdict.
According to him, attempts to prevent an electoral winner from forming the government through unexpected political arrangements may be constitutionally valid, but many people could view them as politically opportunistic.
He further said that such a move could particularly affect the political image of the DMK, which has historically projected itself around ideology, social justice and opposition politics. Nair said that in ideological terms, the DMK appeared closer to TVK than to the AIADMK, and joining hands with its long-time political rival only to remain in power could weaken its broader political narrative.
He added that the same questions would apply to the AIADMK as well, as the party had spent decades positioning itself against the DMK and such an arrangement could create discomfort among its cadre and supporters.
Drawing a comparison with Maharashtra politics in 2019, Nair said he had expressed similar views when the Shiv Sena formed an alliance with the Indian National Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party after the Assembly elections.
He said post-poll alliances between long-standing political rivals often create a public perception that ideology and electoral mandates become secondary when political power equations come into play.
Nair also said such developments increase public cynicism towards politics and reinforce the belief among voters that ideology is often sidelined after elections.
He maintained that the Tamil Nadu verdict was emphatic and said respecting both the spirit and substance of the mandate was important for the credibility of democratic politics.
