As Congress has woken up from its slumber and considerably stepped up its social media attack on the ruling regime, the BJP has sought to revamp and redeploy its “cyber strategy” to effectively project Government policies and programmes across the country.
The last four years’ projection of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the “strides” taken by the country under his leadership have been the mainstay of the BJP’s social media strategy in different State Assembly polls with regional variations. Modi would continue to be in the centre of BJP’s cyber-packaging but with additional and fresh embellishments.
With the lok Sabha polls round the corner, the party is re-tuning its social media moves, which include Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp, blog writing and video advertisement to promote Government’s programmes and showcase its achievements.
The BJP IT cell experts are trying to re-assess the fast evolving “likes and dislikes” of voters as reflected in the social media conversations and exchanges.
In an effort to re-assess the social media scene, which is in flux most of the time with thousands of opinions crisscrossing different sites, BJP leaders interacted and exchanged opinions in a meeting last week.
Party president Amit Shah, Defene Minister Nirmala Sitaraman, party general secretary Ram Madhav and Union Minister of State MJ Akbar , among others, attended the meeting to provide substantial inputs to the BJP’s social media warfare. PMO (OSD) Hiren Joshi and Arvind Gupta, who heads My Gov website, also took part in the discussion.
The need for an authentic dissemination and display of pro-poor schemes and achievements of the BJP Government in the social media was emphasised. It was agreed that to-the-point counter-narratives vis-à-vis the Congress and other Opposition parties should be thrashed out.
This has come as the BJP increasingly seeks to polish its image in the social media space with nuanced messages and advertisements. Towards this end, the party would be deploying more cyber foot-soldiers in the social media, sources said.
With the importance of social media increasing and its impact felt by the political parties, the space has been filled with the rivals who want to prove the other as telling a lie and spreading falsehood.
While the Congress is attacking the “development agenda”, the ruling party is sticking to the plank and pushing it hard in all State elections, which have somewhat worked in its favour.
All parties have been posting series of videos, countering each other and seeking to prove the leader on the other side of the fence as false. Thousands of WhatsApp accounts have also been opened by the parties.
As the BJP is re-vitalising its cyber space, it has also asked its spokespersons across all States to keep their responses short and sweet, targeting the crux of each issue and make the best use of the little time available on the television or social media.