The byelections to Sira and Rajarajeshwarinagar, scheduled for November 3, could see political parties ramp up their social media presence to reach out to voters amid the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic. With social distancing and restrictions on forming groups in place, the parties are also cautious about their leaders contracting the virus over the next 20 days as election fever rises.
WhatsApp is being seen as a preferred platform to reach out to voters at the booth level, and all the three parties are looking at using this medium to reach out through booth-level volunteers. Facebook and Twitter, though, will be used by the parties to reach out to the more savvy voters and with a larger message. In the mostly rural Sira constituency, Facebook is being seen as not of much help, while in R.R. Nagar it could help the parties connect to a bigger urban audience.
“These elections will definitely pose a challenge to the parties involved in electioneering during the pandemic. We are going to use more of social media, especially WhatsApp, to reach out to voters. WhatsApp groups have been formed at the booth level, and party messages will be pushed into these groups, which in turn will forward these messages to the voters,” said BJP spokesman N. Ravikumar. “We can reach the voters directly through WhatsApp and almost instantly. At least about 50% of our canvassing will be done through WhatAapp, while the traditional house-to-house campaigning will also be there,” he said.
JD(S) strategy
The Janata Dal (S), which is traditionally seen as a “not-so tech-savvy” party, is also using WhatsApp to reach out to the maximum number of voters, and has even trained some of its WhatsApp administrators on the kinds of messages to be forwarded to those outside the party’s voter base. “We have told them strictly to forward those messages that speak about the performance and achievements of the JD(S) and not to criticise other parties or leaders. We are also pushing such messages of H.D. Kumaraswamy’s achievements,” said JD(S) social media coordinator Naveen C. Gowda. On the matter of preferring the platform of WhatsApp, he said, “We have seen that most people who are on Facebook are those who are fans or followers of a particular leader or party. Approaching through Facebook will be limited,” he said.
The Congress is learnt to have ramped up its social media team after the oath-taking ceremony of D.K. Shivakumar as Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president saw an overall imprint of about 1.4 crore across social media platforms. “This is also his first election and he has realised the importance of reaching out to voters through online platforms. Booth-level workers are now part of this social media outreach, and Zoom meetings have become common to strategise with the local leaders,” a Congress source said.