Gujarat OBC leader to join Cong Leaving aggression behind, AAP adds wit to its tweets
NEW ALLIANCE Alpesh announces decision after meeting Rahul; party confident of getting Hardik on board, talks on with Jignesh
NEW DELHI: The Congress on Saturday received a shot in the arm ahead of the year-end Gujarat polls after Other Backward Class (OBC) leader Alpesh Thakor announced that he will join the opposition party on Monday.
Thirty-nine-year-old Thakor, who heads the OBC/ST/SC Ekta Manch and is also the founder of Gujarat Kshatriya Thakor Sena (GKTS), made the announcement after meeting Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi in New Delhi.
Confident of securing the support of 24-year-old Patidar leader Hardik Patel, the Congress was also trying to get Dalit activist and lawyer Jignesh Mevani on board.
“Rahul Gandhi will take part in our rally on October 23 and I will join the Congress party,” Thakor told reporters after the meeting, which took place a day before Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to visit his home state.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s political secretary Ahmed Patel, party general secretary in-charge of Gujarat Ashok Gehlot, Gujarat Congress chief Bharatsinh Solanki and other senior state leaders also attended the crucial meeting.
Thakor’s decision to side with the Congress is likely to boost the grand-old party’s poll prospects in the Bjp-ruled state, where it has been out of power for the past 22 years.
The OBC leader had earlier ruled out the possibility of extending support to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and stated that the people of Gujarat had only two options – either to vote
CHANGING STRATEGY, PARTY’S SOCIAL MEDIA TEAM NOW POSTS A CARTOON ON ISSUES AFFECTING THE PEOPLE EACH MORNING
for BJP or Congress.
His organisations have already carried out booth management exercise in all the 182 assembly constituencies.
EYEING OTHER LEADERS
While Hardik has maintained that he has no intention of contesting elections, Mevani—who emerged as a Dalit leader in the wake of the Una flogging incident—earlier told HT that his “movement” has a political “perspective” but he would respond to the Congress invitation after consulting community members and organisations.
“I am against the RSS and BJP ideology, which is out to wipe out democracy from India. My movement is social as well as political. But I will respond to the Congress after consulting my community,” Mevani had said.
Meanwhile, the delay i n announcement of Gujarat poll dates has triggered a war of words between the Congress and the BJP. While the Sonia Gandhiled party accused the Election Commission of succumbing to BJP’S pressure, the ruling party hit back at its arch-rival for ‘questioning the prudence’ of the poll body. NEW DELHI: The Aam Aadmi Party’s official Twitter handle (@aamaadmiparty) added its last one million followers on the social media site over just four months. In contrast, the first three million (it had 4.07 million followers at 5pm on Saturday) were added over four and a half years, pointing to a sharp spike in the party’s online following.
Party strategists admit the spike has come after AAP toned down its aggression and attacks on PM Narendra Modi as part of its new social media strategy.
“Everyone knows Arvind Kejriwal is not fond of Narendra Modi, there is no point stating it every day,” said Arvind Jha — an old associate of the Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal — who manages the social media cell of the party along with its founder Ankit Lal. “Instead we are now focusing on the achievements of the Kejriwal government in Delhi...manish Sisodia’s work in the education sector needs to be highlighted.”
The aggression has been replaced by humour and satire. Every morning, party’s social media team posts a cartoon on an issue concerning the people.
“We found that using cartoons and posting them without a comment has greater appeal. Even those who are not politically inclined towards AAP retweet the cartoons if they find them relevant,” said a social media team strategist. “Several times, the images of these cartoons get circulated on Whatsapp. AAP doesn’t find mention but our message is getting across.”
While party leaders say they are still evolving the strategy and it is being implemented as they go along, marked changes are already visible. Apart from a regular dose of cartoons, the team also tweets the achievements of the AAP’S ‘Delhi model of governance’.
The AAP media cell recently held a meeting of social media volunteers from five southern states in Bengaluru, where it decided to form a central team that will not be based in Delhi but spread across the states.
“We have already been providing raw content to the state units who tweet it after translating it in the local language. That is giving us a lot of traction outside Delhi,” a senior member of the central team who attended the two-day event said.
The party launched its account on Instagram a day before Diwali. In the last 24 hours, it has posted pictures of its leaders — from Kejriwal having dinner with four AAP volunteers on Diwali to Sanjay Singh sharing sweets with the poor and Kumar Vishwas holding a small meet at home. The party’s attempt is to present its softer side.
“As a party we generate lots of photos every day. The idea is to reach out on another platform that is now popular with the youth,” said Lal.