Maharashtra: Social media war rooms powering election campaigns in the digital arena

“Besides booth monitoring, our squad creates, approves and posts contented connected our candidate’s authoritative societal media channels. We debar criticising competitors, alternatively focusing connected highlighting our achievements,” said Alpesh Kadam, BJP’s cooperative compartment president for Thane city.

Working retired of a section warfare country successful Thane, Kadam leads a squad of 9 “super warriors”—party volunteers who negociate some societal media and on-ground activities successful the 9 prabhags (divisions) nether the Thane constituency. In addition, 5 members are dedicated solely to managing Thane’s BJP candidate’s societal media accounts.

Similar warfare rooms beryllium for each BJP campaigner successful the state, with each constituency hosting a dedicated team. “We person a beardown societal media squad astatine the authorities level, but each campaigner besides has their ain warfare room, tally with section enactment support. Content is posted straight to candidates’ handles, ever aligned with enactment principles,” a BJP spokesperson said.

The societal media helping astatine the authorities level monitors media portals, tracks absorption content, and revisits archival data, producing posters, articles, and different worldly for societal media. Once approved by the enactment leadership, the contented is shared crossed platforms.

In summation to societal media, the BJP besides uses robocalls, SMS and WhatsApp for its outreach. For Congress, the conception of a “war room” takes a antithetic shape. While idiosyncratic candidates person their ain “media departments”, the enactment has established determination warfare rooms successful areas similar Western Maharashtra, Vidarbha, Marathwada, and Mumbai.

Earlier this year, Congress brought successful erstwhile MLA Vamshi Reddy who acceptable up warfare rooms successful cardinal metro cities. These enactment intimately with the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee, Mumbai Congress Committee, and AICC. Each warfare country is staffed with 15-20 people, including a probe team.

“Our warfare rooms way macro issues crossed the state, stitchery data, and make contented for societal media. For example, we rapidly shared contented erstwhile our manifesto was released,” said Nadeem Nusrath, General Secretary of Mumbai Congress. “Our extremity is to present the connection swiftly and antagonistic mendacious narratives by sticking to facts.” After the elections, Congress plans to dissolve these warfare rooms and redirect teams to caller assignments.

Meanwhile, the NCP(SP) has acceptable up astir 86 warfare rooms crossed Maharashtra, each dedicated to the constituencies their candidates are contesting. The cardinal warfare room, based successful Mumbai, coordinates with these determination teams.

“These warfare rooms enactment astir the clock, monitoring issues statewide and ensuring maximum scope via societal media platforms similar Instagram, Facebook, and X (formerly Twitter),” said Clyde Crasto, nationalist spokesperson for NCP(SP). “If there’s a rally, we unrecorded watercourse speeches to link straight with the public.”

Shiv Sena besides maintains a dedicated warfare country that creates contented for societal media. To decentralise, astir candidates person their ain idiosyncratic channels arsenic well. In summation to enactment workers, the Sena enlists outer agencies for method tasks.

“Our warfare room’s main extremity is to item our improvement initiatives and payment schemes, utilizing clips from the CM’s speeches,” a Shiv Sena root said.