Politicians take to social media like never before to reach out to voters

VISAKHAPATNAM: Sharing quick updates of the activities of their party members, all political parties have been updating their campaigning. Eight days to go for the elections, candidates are hitting millions of likes by their fans in the Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Every party with a tech-savvy young team keeps posting regular updates of the daily happenings of the party in the city.   

The social media campaigns were never so widespread as in the current elections. Thanks to the introduction of smart phones and unlimited Internet packages, social media updates are shared by every common man, be it auto drivers, shopkeepers, tea stall owners, vegetable vendors, government employees, retired people, working women or students in rural and urban areas.

With millions of fans following the party pages, people are able to view live events through social media sites. “I told my daughter to  teach me how to use Facebook because my other friends are into it. Since then I keep sharing activities of my favourite political party. It is not something that I was told to do but it is a kind of campaigning I am doing for my leader to win this elections,” said Raju, an auto driver in Kirlampudi Layout in the city. 

Besides the parties, the candidates too have FB  pages managed by their team members or their children who regularly update the news. In the Facebook, TDP has 4.1 million followers, while YSRCP has 993K, Jana Sena 1.6 million and the BJP a million. Each party again has different pages created by their fans like TDP yellow army, YSRCP youth force, Jana Sena PK fans and a  few other fans made pages posting memes and videos, including film songs. 

CM N Chandrababu Naidu has 1.8 million hits, YS Jagan 1.6 million and Pawan Kalyan 701k likes. There is also a tough fight among local candidates in Vizag who equally compete with the Opposition party in updating day-to-day events and awareness drives on schemes. More than their own FB page, there are fan pages created by supporters.