Bihar assembly elections: JD(U)’s digital war room powers party’s poll campaign blitz

PATNA: With assembly elections less than a month away and the Election Commission restricting political parties from holding rallies in view of Covid-19 pandemic, the ruling Janata Dal (United) is trying to woo social media users with creative slogans. From ‘Nitish mei vishwas, Bihar mei vikas’ to ‘nyay ke sath tarakki, Nitish ki baat pakki’, the party has come up with some interesting slogans.Starting from May this year, JD(U) national president and CM Nitish Kumar has been communicating with his party cadres through the virtual platform. The party, in fact, kick-started its digital operations for assembly elections in May itself. A war room was set up and an extensive digital network created using social media and WhatsApp groups in order to appease the voters.“With around 400 dedicated WhatsApp groups with relevant data, content, info graphics and videos everyday, we are in direct communication with party cadres down to the booth level. Our comprehensive digital set up consists of an integrated mechanism of massive Facebook operations, weekly digital rallies, newsletters, monitoring, reporting, creative lines for slogans and other aspects of reach out to the masses,” said JD(U) state spokesperson Rajiv Ranjan on Wednesday.JD(U)’s weekly Facebook live ‘Sunday Samvad’ has completed 19 editions so far. “Every Sunday at 12 noon, our MPs, MLAs, MLCs, district presidents, spokespersons, presidents of prakoshtha, prakhand chiefs, media cell heads, prakhand presidents and booth level workers go LIVE from around 1,000 handles. They interact with people on concurrent issues, including floods and Covid,” Ranjan added.The party has altogether 53 Facebook pages that are updated with election-related videos and info graphics every day. A dedicated Facebook page by the name ‘Nitish cares’ was created on May 30 to highlight the development work done by the CM. More than 200 videos and 870 info graphics have been posted on the page till now. Regular content on several election-focused topics, including ‘CM’s Saat Nischay’, and his speeches feature on the page, which is followed by around 16,000 people.“The CM cares page has done exceptionally well in a short span of time. With a cumulative 2,68,91,443 per day visits till September 19, the page has gained a substantial traction of social media users. Videos on this page have been viewed over 1,08,00,000 times in 112 days since its inception,” said a JD(U) war room official on condition of anonymity.The JD(U) social media strategy is not only focused on wooing voters in the state, but also keeps a real-time tab on the digital activities of key opposition leaders too. From tracking their press conferences and visits to monitoring their social media handles, the party is leaving no stone unturned to ace the upcoming elections.