The Gujarat Assembly election is less than two weeks away, and political parties are making every effort to broaden their appeal to the electorate. Political parties are doing everything possible as part of the electioneering process in the hopes that their efforts will pay off on December 8, the day the election results will be announced, whether it be important leaders visiting the state and holding large rallies or party workers going door-to-door and interacting with citizens. In addition to the conventional means of electioneering, social media campaigning is a trend that has grown in popularity with the development of technology. Political parties are relying more on it because their message and platform can be spread across social media with just a few clicks. The BJP, which has ruled Gujarat for the past 27 years, has built the strongest social media army to defend its stronghold, despite the fact that most of the major political parties are using social media for campaigning.
The BJP has 10,000 party workers who work for the social media team in addition to creating a social media war room where over 100 people, mostly digital marketing students, push out content focusing on the initiatives and development works of the saffron party. Up until the elections are done, the party will be assisted by an additional 50,000 volunteers from across the state in growing its social media presence.
Students, most of whom are between the ages of 20 and 22, create election tactics for the BJP in the social media war room, publish them online, keep tabs on hot subjects, and refute the charges made by rival political parties. The youngsters are employed as interns in the social media war room while attending various colleges in Ahmedabad. The kids work eight hours a day in the social media war room with clearance from their various colleges.
The interns are instructed on how to work and what to publish as part of the social media campaign by the BJP’s core social media staff, with whom the students collaborate closely.
Four areas—South Gujarat, Saurashtra, North Gujarat, and Central Gujarat—make up the war room. The districts and significant cities within each zone are further divided. When a city is large, like Surat, it is split into two sections, and two distinct teams are tasked with maintaining each section. One of the showrunners in the social media war room is Pankaj Shukla, the leader of the Gujarat chapter of the BJP’s social media team and an IT coordinator. Shukla claims that everything posted on social media that is associated with the BJP is under observation.
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“Through social media, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, and other leaders communicate with the public. We will employ students as interns till the elections are over. In addition to them, we have a 10,000-person social media team made up of BJP members “Shukla stated.
Additionally, according to Shukla, the BJP has 50,000 social media volunteers who operate from their homes in various Gujarati areas. He added that “these volunteers also keep an eye on the BJP’s social media accounts and pages and seek to broaden the party’s social media presence.”