After Social Media, WhatsApp Is Favorite Among Politicians

BANGALORE: With the changing face of Indian politics, ways of reaching out to an aspiration population too are changing. Political parties who once were acquainted with the old ways of campaigning are increasingly embracing not just social media but free messaging app like WhatsApp 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. Both the two big national parties like Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress have created 'WhatsApp', numbers for the voters besides employing other social media. In this way, political leaders can directly connect by sending private messages to both party cadre as well potential voters for free.

Sameer Pandey, Head of Congress' IT Cell said, "We have provided Smartphone to some party leaders in remote areas so that they can show the party's promotional videos to villagers and make them listen to audio messages," reports PTI.

As the younger generation and the educated India are all online, it helps the parties to directly keep in touch with the voters and also to update them on the activities of the parties at present, said Arvind Gupta, national convener of the BJP's IT.

The main reason why this free messaging app has more preference over social media is because of its user friendliness where a user just needs to know how to message, unlike, social media where one requires a user id and a password to access the account.

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