While social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter have brought candidates contesting polls closer particularly to the young voter base, the battle for ensuing general elections is expected to get even more exciting with WhatsApp getting included as a potent mobile platform used by supporters of various
political parties to air their party's views.
According to the office of Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) around 72,000 new voters have been added in the voters list after the recently concluded Assembly polls in Chhattisgarh.
A significant part of the voter population is Apps friendly with stricter measures being adopted by the Election Commission of India towards campaigns put on mobile Apps.
With Smartphones going cheaper, the reach of youth to technology has also increased. Manish Dubey a young Congress party supporter hailing from Ambikapur city of Surguja region says that during the Assembly polls, he had made good use of social media sites like Facebook to campaign for the party. Incidentally, the Congress party won 7 out of 8 Assembly seats in Surguja region.
Nikhil (18) who is preparing for his PMT exams in Bhilai city is quite excited about coming election as he would be voting for the first time the lok Sabha polls. “We have our friends group on WhatsApp and on certain occasions we discusses about the politicians and their parties,” he says enthusiastically.
Notably, political parties are also conscious about this trend and both BJP and Congress have their IT Cell remaining active over various social networking sites while trying to build their parties image. Video, pictures, animations are being aggressively shared by political parties on Whatsapp.
Social media and tech expert Mohit Sahu who has been awarded by Google, says collaboration of Facebook and WhatsApp is going to bring about a big change. If we look back at 'Anna Hazare Movement' it was largely fuelled by social media. “WhatsApp in now available on laptops and computer system it would add more people on cyber world,” tells Mohit adding the days of discussion over tea or coffee are gone and it has been largely placed by talk on the social media.
Strict control over election campaign by ECI like limiting wall paintings and banner poster distribution would act as a catalyst to find new solutions to connect with the people.
Now general elections will be witnessing a sea change in terms of conventional canvassing this time round, after the Assembly elections with swelled up numbers of new electorates. Its seems that gone are the days of wall writings in election time. All the big banners and flexes are now fitting into the palms of youngsters in the forms of Facebook and WhatsApp.