Unfazed by desertions, Bains braves it out on social media

Ludhiana: After close confidants bid him goodbye one by one and joined rival parties, Lok Insaaf Party (LIP) MLA Simarjit Singh Bains has started aggressive campaigning on social media to garner support from the public. He is reposting old Facebook posts of his sting operations against different departments, and is reminding people about his stand against corruption, assuring them that it would remain the same. In addition, he has also started posting a series of graphics, in which he is challenging chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh and former deputy chief minister Sukhbir Badal for a debate with him on various issues. In other graphics, he is trying to strike a connection with people by talking about issues like drugs, and tugging at their heartstrings through robust Punjabi poetry.
Although it is not hard to predict how Bains — who finished fourth in the 2014 MP elections — will fare this time, but when it comes to social media, he is a clear winner. With 9,07,826 likes on his page, he eclipses all the other three candidates, whose combined likes add up to only 1,39,414 — merely a tenth of his likes. Bains’s page is famous not only in Punjab, but other states too as well as other countries. One of the reasons he has so many followers on social media is that he streams live all his sting operations first on his Facebook page.

Speaking to TOI, Bains said: “Some of my colleagues left LIP recently for making their career in other parties, but it hardly makes any difference to us, as LIP along with our alliance partners is going to score an unprecedented win in the Lok Sabha elections. As far as my activities on social media are concerned, it is not that I have become more active only after some people left me, but I was active even earlier. Moreover, this is the best medium to have a dialogue with my supporters, and regardless of any elections, this will continue.”