Gone are the days when rallies and election campaigns were run on the streets only. Now the social media has a considerable effect and plays a great role in influencing the hoi polloi in elections at the state and central level. The case is going to be no different in Himachal Pradesh 2017 elections. Now not only mike and loudspeakers are the only tools and rallies as the fields for war of words between political parties but shares on Facebook, WhatsApp campaign and #tags on twitters do the equal, perhaps more, than what traditional political arenas use to.
In the most recent events in HP elections 2017, BJP and Congress locked horns on social media before the Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s Mandi rally on Saturday i.e. October 14, 2017. The BJP supporters started a ‘PappuPanoti’ #tag on Twitter and targeted the alleged failure of the ruling party in the state. Both the parties are active on the social media and sharing videos, funny animations etc. to target the opponent in the poll bound state. While BJP is losing no opportunity to highlight the corruption and failure of congress government in the state, the ruling parting has upped its ante against GST, Demonetization and failure of BJP at the center.
The campaign wars are on full swing on the social media. In the recent past, BJP run a social media campaign ‘Hisaab Maange Himachal’ that was countered by the congress side with ‘Jawab Dega Himachal’. Besides, this the IT cells of the Congress and BJP party are also using social media to spread messages besides being adding videos and posts on Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and other platforms. With all this, the day doesn’t seem too far when election campaigns will be run on the social media platforms only.
