Bengaluru: The ruling Congress has scored brownie points over the BJP, trolling opposition leaders and communicating the party’s messages through Twitter, Facebook and several networking sites, with the help of a revamped team of the social media cell.
As part of its nation-wide strategy, the Congress revamped its social media activity in the state in September, adding many young engineers, designers, artistes, former journalists to the team. The upshot: results of a successful mission were evident in November. Mr Srivatsa Y.B, a Congressman with over 12 years experience in the IT industry, and convenor of the state social media cell, told DC: "What we do is that we run party activities, post items on social media. In every district and in every Assembly segment, we will have social media convenors. Our plan is to have a Congress digital volunteer in every polling booth who in turn disseminate information shared by the Party’s top brass and share them with local people through WhatsApp groups." Sources in the party said CM Siddaramaiah, released Rs 20 crores to run the operation till Assembly elections next year.
According to party sources over 100 volunteers work in a war room set up near the KPCC office. Party workers and leaders are barred from entering this facility. "They re-tweet all tweets of the Chief Minister, ministers and party leaders. They troll opposition leaders," disclosed a leader
Mr Srivatsa, however, stated that the social media cell did not receive any funds. “We run the operation from KPCC office. Earlier, the BJP used to dominate (social media-scape).Now, we managed to gain traction. For instance, BJP’s CM candidate, B.S. Yeddyurappa would get tens of re-tweets and likes whereas our CM would get 2000 re-tweets and over 500 likes. We do not troll any leader. If they mislead public with false information, we try to clarify," he added.
