How BJP's Online Campaign Proved Vital for Success

NEW DELHI: With the BJP registering a thumping victory in the general election, significant credit goes to the party's online campaign to tap the general psyche by connecting with millions of youngsters.

Vikas Pandey, a 30-year-old software architect, headed the social media campaigns like "I Support Namo" on Facebook and Twitter, as a volunteer for the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the then prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi.

He said the credit for such success should be shared by countless volunteers, mainly students and retired people.

Son of Gorakhpur mayor and BJP leader Dr. Satya Pandey, he said he involved himself with the political campaigning after meeting Modi in 2010. During this first meeting Modi asked him to make better use of the social media for the party's political success. Since then he started devoting his professional expertise as a 'swayamsewak' (RSS volunteer), without any fees for person or his fellow volunteers' services.

Pandey said the social media played a vital role in the current election in not only getting the BJP's desired message across but also influencing the public imagination at large to vote.

"Though Facebook was our main focus, we also got many volunteers from Twitter and Google+," Pandey told IANS.

Asked whose baby the online campaign was, Pandey said he felt inspired by the Aam Aadmi Party's success in the 2013 Delhi assembly elections to turn the tables by getting non- partisan, self-motivated volunteers from the social media.