Eyeing the tech-friendly and net-savvy segment of the voting populace – termed as ‘the newest vote-bank with the power to shape Indian politics’ by a study conducted by the IRIS Knowledge Foundation and the Internet and Mobile Association of India in April 2013 that claimed that results in over 150 lok Sabha constituencies could be decided by Facebook users-- many political parties in Jharkhand are gearing up to register their presence on the worldwide web ahead of the 2014 lok Sabha polls, through websites and pages on social networking sites.
First off the mark is the AJSU party, whose web portal ajsuparty.org has been up and running for few months now and has had 14,048 visitors so far. Besides providing information about the party’s activities and events in the State, it also provides details of its organisation in each of the 24 districts. AJSU has also retained Mutual PR ltd., a Delhi-based public relations firm to handle media relations.
“My brief is to look after the party’s media relations, media management and image building through various media platforms,” said Akash, the firm’s Ranchi representative.
Fresh from their session with party MP Priya Dutt, who had asked the state Congress unit to “use Facebook and other social networking sites to connect with the tech-savvy generation in the state; as the platform can help in getting relevant feedback on the development work and gauge the mood of people,” the state Congress is also looking to register its presence on the internet, albeit in a phased manner. According to the party’s spokesperson Dr. Shailesh Sinha, “We will be launching the Pradesh Congress website soon. It is currently under construction and the state president Sukhdeo Bhagat is personally supervising the work. Once this is done, we will look at other platforms”
Not to be left behind in the race for the internet-users’ minds, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) too is working on its portal. According to the party’s state general secretary Anant Ojha, “Two of our party workers have been given the charge of developing our website and it is still being developed. We will launch it as soon as it is ready.”
However, it seems that social media is still not in the parties’ immediate plans; with both the Congress and BJP sources saying that the party will approach social networking sites, but after the website launch. They did concur that many leaders from both parties have their individual Facebook and Twitter accounts, with which they keep in touch with their followers. Smaller parties such as the Jharkhand Disom Party and lok Satta Party Jharkhand too have Facebook pages.
Also, senior leaders such as former CM Arjun Munda and AJSU president Sudesh Mahto have fan pages on Facebook and Twitter. However, officials of Mutual PR, the firm hired by AJSU, refused to divulge details of their work for AJSU in internet and social networking spheres citing client confidentiality.