BJP IT Cell head Amit Malviya.
Credit: X/@amitmalviya
With an eye on the upcoming assembly polls and the big 2024 wrestle, the BJP’s IT Cell is intensifying its efforts, holding training sessions for party workers and expanding its base. To this end the party is building a team of dedicated volunteers across each state, roping in influencers, and training party workers on how to handle social media.
A senior party leader, not wishing to be named, said that it has been decided to have a dedicated team of at least 300 volunteers in each state who are hard-trained IT professionals and are not attached to the party. “The criteria for these individuals, apart from their professional prowess, will be that they are ideologically attuned to the BJP, are nationalistic and believe in our ideology of integral humanism. These volunteers will each be a leader in his region, driving the party’s work among the voters,” the leader said.
Work for the 2024 Lok Sabha campaign has begun in full swing with the party working on a ‘Sankhnaad’ series which begun in August this year, under which all the states have been divided into seven zones to ensure that each state unit has a presence of social media volunteers upto the booth level. Recently, in Uttar Pradesh, a massive IT convention was held where it was decided that the state will have 20,000 volunteers pushing out its messaging.
“The idea is that 30 per cent of the voter penetration should come from social media alone, and each booth will need to have at least one social media in-charge,” a leader involved in the process said.
Last month, the IT Cell rolled out training camps for all of the party’s seven Morchas with an aim to equip the social media wings of each cell to take on the combined efforts of the I.N.D.I.A parties. The success of welfare schemes and Chandrayaan missions are going to be played up in the upcoming polls, and controversial speeches of I.N.D.I.A leaders as well as speeches of Modi will be highlighted, said those involved in the campaigns.
Similar such meetings are slated in poll-bound Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh in the coming days. Social media presence of politicians is also a parameter for their electoral success. For instance, in Telangana, state leaders have decided to assess the social media presence of probable candidates before tickets are given to them; leaders have been asked to have at least 25,000 followers in key social media platforms.
Issues that affect women and the OBC community are key focus areas of social media messaging, especially in poll-bound states. In Rajasthan, for instance, the party is picking up the issue of OBCs in five districts not being able to procure a caste certificate easily. They are also highlighting the Modi government instituting the National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC) as a constitutional body since 2018, and the reservation of 27 per cent accorded to the community.
To drum up issues pertaining to the OBC community, the party had roped in the OBC Morcha and earlier this week they conducted a workshop in the party headquarters. States with a majority of OBC populations, which adds up to 30 states as per the party’s estimates, have been part of the training.
The women’s wing will have a prominent role in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh, highlighting the women-centric schemes in the state. “Eight out of ten schemes in the state are for women, and the passage of the women’s reservation bill shows that the Modi government is committed to the idea of ‘aadhi abaadi, poora haq’,” said a senior member of the Mahila Morcha.
The party has also been focussing on roping in influencers from across platforms such as YouTube and Instagram, with senior ministers Piyush Goyal and S Jaishankar holding meetings with influencers in June this year. In a meeting with party workers, president JP Nadda had asked leaders to ensure that every district finds 100 such local influencers.
Leaders from the IT Unit of the OBC Morcha said that some of the key issues they will pick up include Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s “insult” of PM Modi, and the PM Vishwakarma scheme, which the party is highlighting that the scheme will help 18 professions.