India's Political Parties Embrace Social Media With Gusto

New Delhi: With the changing politics of India, ways of reaching out to a younger and aspiration population too are changing. Political parties used to the old ways of campaigning are increasingly embracing social media to woo the people. It is a long leap from the times when politicians relied mainly on posters, cardboard cutouts, fliers, graffiti and the tough house-to-house canvassing to win over voters.

All of these are still in vogue. But increasingly, in urban India, political parties are becoming tech savvy, realizing this is the only way to reach out to the articulate young.

Among the major parties, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has the biggest presence in social media. The BJP started using the social medium even before the 2009 general election - which it lost. But in recent years, it has dug deeper.

"We were the first party to launch a web site in 1998," Arvind Gupta, national convener of the BJP's IT, told IANS. "Technology has been in BJP's DNA. We have always used technology very effectively, whether to give information to supporters or to make information available faster."

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