Cong takes to social media to spread its poll message

Lucknow: Among the many firsts for the Congress party in a run up to the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls its decision to announce a CM face was one is the way the party has taken to social media to spread its poll message to UP's people. Call it the Prasant Kishor effect, or the proverbial need of the hour, Congress has launched a social media initiative to match its on-ground campaign in a bid to reach out to voters across the state.
The UP Congress committee has already set up a dedicated social media cell, which is now making an effort to reach out through WhatsApp, YouTube videos and has also asked its leaders and workers to register themselves on twitter and facebook, to post campaign related content, and, even more importantly, get smartphone savvy.
The launch of its UP campaign through the '27 saal UP behaal' bus yatra, for instance, has not been limited to the places where the bus halts. While the senior Congress leadership AICC general secretary Ghulam Nabi Azad, UPCC president Raj Babbar and campaign committee chairman Sanjay Sinh, among others are taking the padyatra to people's homes, the social media team is working to ensure their messages reached a wider audience through videos, instagram photos, tweets and WhatsApp messages. During the maiden bus yatra through West and Central UP, for instance, Azad and Babbar's video messages were recorded and put on Twitter. Azad's 5 minute video on how Congress will change the political discourse in UP comes along with Babbar's own appeal to UP's youth, asking them to choose Congress in order to secure their future.
A social media team member coordinating the effort from Lucknow said, "We realise that social media is an important means to communicate with people. The team is ensuring that our on-ground campaign gets proportional traction through social media, and a wider audience is able to know what Congress has in mind for UP's people."