CHENNAI: Taking a cue from Dravidian majors going gaga on social media ahead of Assembly polls, Chief Electoral Officer, Rajesh Lakhoni, is now learning the nuances of handling Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp from top techies associated with Google and Facebook.
Daily tweets and sharing poll jingles in WhatsApp are now a must for government babus working on elections. Lakhoni is also a group admin of Election TN Media WhatsApp group where he shares official data with 82 reporters and also responds to media queries.
The elections department started tweeting 10 weeks ago and the Twitter handle now has close to 4,000 followers.
The tweet video of cricketer Ashwin on TN polls is an instant hit and to maintain the momentum, the CEO is now keen on new ideas enriched with crazy scripts and funny videos starring caricatures of superstar Ranjikanth to Shaktimaan.
While clearing the files, a senior official on poll duty who was initially hesitant to the idea of focusing on social media, says it’s fun to be associated with twitter and social media.
“We are now smiling and sharing jokes in the department thanks to WhatsApp and Facebook comments. The social media had also changed the serious ambience that usually prevails at the Secretariat corridor ahead of elections”.
We always see elections as a serious political process, but now the trend has changed. People share videos of political parties, comment on them and make jokes of it and now to monitor the social media is a duty, excluding the fun part in it,” the official added.
To reach the younger crowd and students, all efforts are explored and from this year onward political parties can also submit online applications with the election department to get police permission for campaign vehicles and speakers to be used for poll campaign”, says Rajesh Lakhoni.
Besides social media, school students are also now roped in for election awareness. School children can influence their parents to cast their votes and we have launched our campaign process in schools on Thursday and more schools will be reached”, he said.
