The candidates in fray for Jamshedpur lok Sabha elections of late have realised the impact of social media tools and this is evident from the change in their attitude towards the wireless mode of communication in reaching out to the people.
Jamshedpur politicians have learnt the new art of getting closer to the mass by using the free cyber media. Almost all the bigwigs of politics can be found on various social networking sites, sharing their ideologies and fetching supporters.
Online election campaign by candidates has added to the election heat in Jamshedpur lok Sabha constituency. Net Savvy Dr Ajoy Kumar of JVM has managed to get 19,845 likes on his Facebook account with 8847 persons talking about him in the last couple of months. The number of likes has gone up in the last few weeks as the sitting MP and Jharkhand Vikas Morcha candidate from Jamshedpur has been continuously updating his account. He has announced 20 agenda for the next 60 months.
“It feels good to get connecting new people every day. The world is upgrading with technology and so should we. It makes us easy to interact with the public,” said CH Rammurthy, spokesperson of JVM.
Bharatiya Janata Party’s Vidyut Varan Mahato has also opened a new Facebook account. Sources say that though he is banking mostly on his offline campaigning but the publicity team of the saffron party make sure that he has his say on the web battle. The accounts of the party in social sites like Facebook and Twitter are working hard to spread party’s message.
On the other hand, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha candidate Niroop Mohanty is banking on his page ‘Niroop Mohanty JMM Fans Club’, that captures his journey in political world. One of the followers of a political party says that it is so popular among the politicians because it requires no amazing abilities to impress the target audience. A more advanced, tech-savvy and better image is created in the mindset.
“This time in the election the social sites are playing an important role. News hits the social media a lot faster than it does through the other mediums. Also, there is a possibility of two way interaction which makes the electorate feel we care about them and they try to understand our perspective,” said Niroop Mahanty, JMM candidate.
Former Chief Minister and former Jamshedpur MP, Arjun Munda, known for his penchant for latest technology gadgets, was the first person to introduce SMS and website as medium of communication to touch the voters in the constituency.
“The campaign on social media has revolutionized. It is quite a hassle-free method of communicating with people on a large scale as most of the people these days,” says Shailendra Mahto, a JMM activist.