The Bharatiya Janata Party will apply the “T20 formula” to ensure victory in the 2019 general elections, a senior party leader said. The T20 here, differs from the one popular in cricketing parlance as the party has set a target for every worker to visit at least 20 houses in their area and publicise the Narendra Modi -led government’s achievements while having tea. As the party targets to secure another term, it has asked its workers to promote the government achievements to each and every house through “Har Booth, Das Youth” (roughly translated as ‘each booth ten youth’), NaMo app contact initiative, and booth ‘toli’, apart from the T20 formula. The BJP has asked its MPs, MLAs, local and booth-level workers to spread awareness among people in their respective area about the government’s schemes. “The party workers have been asked to visit every village in their area and have tea at at least 20 houses there,” a senior BJP leader told PTI -Bhasha. He said the initiative is for establishing direct dialogue with public.
Notably, the party had campaigned aggressively before the last general elections and used information and technology to connect with voters. A major highlight of the technology-driven campaign was 3-D rally in which Modi delivered speech through 3D projections of himself. Using the technology, Modi, BJP then prime ministerial candidate, would address people at several locations simultaneously. The BJP in the run-up to the 2014 Lok Sabha elections had started the “chai pe charcha” (conversations over tea) campaign, using which Modi connected with the common man over the brew and discussed several issues. The party now aims to take the campaign to a wider level for the upcoming elections. It has formulated a detailed strategy for booth level under which the party workers have been asked to add more people to the Narendra Modi (NaMo app).
According to party sources, a new version of the app, which will have a section regarding the assignments for workers, is on the cards next week. The section will contain things such as assignments for workers, how to include more people, information in texts, video clips and graphics, they said. According to them, the BJP has set a target of adding 100 people to NaMo app at every polling booth. “A toli (team) of chief workers at every booth is being formed which will publicise the direct benefits from the schemes of the Modi government or the state governments (where the BJP is in power),” the sources said. The senior BJP leader said efforts are on to add 20 new members at every booth. He said they are trying to include people from all class and communities. After brainstorming at the BJP national executive meeting, the workers have been asked to speed up the implementation of the “Ghar Ghar Dastak” campaign. A team (toli) of at least two dozen workers is being formed at every booth as part of the party’s door-to-door outreach program. The BJP will counter the narrative of the opposition parties over various issues using the campaign which would run in several phases. It will highlight the government’s achievements in the 5-year tenure and make people aware about roadmap for the next term. According to party sources, the BJP workers will use facts and figures to help people understand as to ” how important it is for them to keep the BJP government in power”.
Election 2019 will be an intense, high-stakes tussle for power like all others but with one difference – in a first, it is likely to be as hotly contested in the virtual world as in the real one with parties already busy getting their social media warriors battle-ready.
Social media played a key role in propelling the BJP to power in 2014, but is set to take on a different dimension altogether in 2019 with the opposition led by the Congress getting their arsenal ready to combat the ruling party’s formidable cyber army.
War rooms are getting ready and thousands of volunteers being trained in data analytics and communication through digital platforms as parties, including not just the Congress and the BJP but also smaller players like the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), prep for the electoral battle ahead.
The Congress, which seems to have learnt its lessons from 2014, is scaling up its operations to challenge the BJP on a front which has been the saffron party’s forte.
The process to widen the Congress digital presence started a long time ago and digital war rooms have already been set up in every state, said the party’s social media department head Divya Spandana. “We have a (social media) unit in every state and now we are going down to districts. Since it’s digital, everybody is already connected. Everybody has data on their phone and everything is managed through the state teams,” Spandana told PTI.
Last week, Congress president Rahul Gandhi put out a Facebook post inviting people to fill out a customised form to improve the party’s communications. The party also shared a WhatsApp number and asked users to connect on the platform.
The BJP, the first party to realise the potential of social media, is still formidable in the digital space with a robust organisation ready to face the opposition’s challenge. It has approximately 1.2 million volunteers, an ever-increasing network, said BJP national information and technology in-charge Amit Malviya. “BJP social media strategy relies on its well-trained cadre, who are adept at using the medium for political communication, and committed volunteer network,” Malviya told PTI. The Congress hopes to match up. Spandana, who is credited with the turnaround in the party’s popularity online, said a “significant number” of people was working in the social media team. The team will be further strengthened in the run up to the 2019 polls, she asserted. The “social media warriors” are fully geared for the elections, she said, adding that the challenge would be to counter BJP “misuse” of digital presence to “spread fake news”. The Congress is not alone in realising the importance of social media to checkmate the BJP.
Even the CPI (M), which has relied on traditional outreach initiatives in the past, is looking to expand its digital presence. The party’s social media team coordinator Pranjal said 2019 would be fought in the digital space and on the ground as most parties are looking to match the challenge posed by the BJP. “We started quite late when it comes to social media. Actually, it was in 2014 that we started realising that we need to go for it. I think over the last two years, we have covered large ground,” he said. The CPI (M) has dedicated teams in states such as Kerala, West Bengal, Tripura and Tamil Nadu looking after the digital space, he added. The party has a presence on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and is working to scale up activity on all of these as well as its YouTube channel. “We don’t function in the BJP manner. We don’t have secret war rooms or secret underground bunkers. But we have a lot of volunteers,” said AAP social media strategist Ankit Lal.
Parties are also looking at data analytics to expand their connect with workers and voters. Praveen Chakravarty, head of the Congress data analytics department, said a lot of initiatives were being taken to strengthen the party’s base. These include Project Shakti which aims at organizing all party workers on a common digital platform and has become a “roaring success” over the last five months. “Establishing a data analytics department in a major political party is a big step…the party has recognised the importance of making decisions through data,” he said. BJP Malviya said studying electoral data to interpret voting patterns is not new to electoral politics, but the advent of big data and machine learning facilitated deeper analysis and insights. CPI(M) Pranjal also acknowledged that data analytics was an important sphere, but conceded that it needed a special skill set and wondered how his party would meet the challenge. Noting that data analytics would be crucial for elections, AAP Lal cautioned, “After the Cambridge Analytica scandal, we will be very careful as to how the data is being procured and we will be very cautious how others use it, keeping a watch on others.”
The UK-based data mining firm was accused of harvesting personal user data from Facebook illegally to influence polls in several countries. At an estimated 462.12 million, India has the second highest number of internet users in the world after China. In 2019, it is estimated there will be 258.27 million social network users in India, up from close to 168 million in 2016, according to market research firm Statista.
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