The Congress party, which has been a reluctant social media convert, has had to introduce a few innovations in their campaigns for Uttarakhand and Punjab, which went to the polls in the early phases with a host of restrictions on campaign imposed by the Election Commission due to the pandemic.
The party boasts that former president Rahul Gandhi’s rally at Ludhiana, where he announced that Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi will be the chief ministerial face, was viewed simultaneously by 91,000 persons, which is a record of sorts. The video has so far crossed 40 lakh views.
According to party’s chairman of the social media department, Rohan Gupta, this was possible because the ‘hybrid virtual rally”. “Rahul Gandhi was on ground at Ludhiana, where because of the restrictions, only a limited number of participants were allowed. But to take his message across, we had set up LED screens in every district. Out of these, 20 districts had facility for a two–way communication,” Mr. Gupta said. This was the first time the Congress was doing this at this scale.
Other than the big ticket rallies that set the tone and tenor of a party’s campaign, the challenge this time was also to bridge the gap between the candidate and the voter navigating myriad restrictions. “Every morning, we would send out the candidates’ videos addressing the issues that concern them,” Mr. Gupta said.
For the high–stakes battle in Punjab, the social media campaign began five-months before the polls setting up a social media control room at Mohali, close to Chandigarh.
“We came in here in October. The initial round was to do surveys on ground to get real time feedback from the voters. Our emphasis was to publicise the big policy decisions taken by the Channi government in the last three months,” Nitin Agarwal, social media co-ordinator for Punjab, said. The work was done by a 25-member core team and other volunteers.
