Regional parties bank on ShareChat to reach out to voters in large numbers: Report

Regional political parties are getting innovative in their efforts to reach to out to voters in large numbers. While national parties usually rely on mainstream social media mediums like Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, their regional counterparts are using ShareChat to reach maximum voter base, reports The Economic Times. 

“ShareChat is a unique platform with its core focus on regional language users who are early adopters of the internet. Our audience is distinctive, and form the core voter base who will be exercising their vote,” said a ShareChat spokesperson.

"Political parties have understood this USP of our platform, and we are not surprised that these parties are keen to join the platform and woo voters,” he added.

Parties like YSR Congress in Andhra Pradesh, Jana Sena Party in Telangana and Andhra, Telangana Rashtra Samiti and Communist Party of India (Marxist) in Kerala are all active users of ShareChat.

ShareChat is popular in the South. The platform’s 2 million and 4.5 million daily users (according to industry sources) among Telugu language speakers validates this.

“As social media is the biggest weapon for our party, we decided to be active on all social media platforms. This includes ShareChat, Helo and even short video app Samosa.” He adds, “All these local apps are to reach out for local language speaking people. And since our party is active in both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, and since the language is the same, it helps us,” Gnana Varsha, a member of Jana Sena Party’s Shatagni (social media cell) team, told the paper.  

Apart from regional political parties, national parties too have a presence on ShareChat. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the most popular leader on the platform. However, Modi has not yet joined ShareChat.

The platform has become a significant medium to share political content like propaganda in the form of images portraying leaders larger than life. These pictures are accompanied with texts either favouring a particular party or leader or are against it.

ShareChat was first used for political activity by Hardik Patel, Jignesh Mewani and Alpesh Thakore to reach out to their base during last year’s Gujarat polls.