Cong holds workshop to counter BJP narrative

THE VOLUNTEERS WERE TRAINED IN VARIOUS ASPECTS OF SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE, WERE SPECIFICALLY ASKED TO HIGHLIGHT THE FAILURES OF THE BJP GOVERNMENT

GURUGRAM: To catch up with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on social media, the Congress on Thursday said it has mapped workers at the booth level across Haryana and assigned over 30,000 social media volunteers the task of contesting the ruling party’s narrative online.

Addressing a workshop of social media volunteers in Gurugram, Congress state chief Kumari Selja asked them to challenge the BJP at every step.

“The BJP has a large army of paid workers... Anonymous handles, sympathisers are being used to play mind games with masses and to influence the perception of people,” said Selija.

The volunteers, who were trained during the workshop in various aspects of social media usage, were specifically asked to highlight the failures of the BJP government, understand the Congress ideology and challenge the BJP on every social media platform.

As part of its social media strategy, the party said it had also developed an internal social media and IT analytics tool, which shall help in monitoring the performance of the volunteers.

“The BJP’S social media strategy is focused on negative issues while we will focus on ideology. They are interested in promoting one leader but we will take feedback from the public and fight on those issues,” said Rohan Gupta, chairman of the social media department of the Congress.

He said the volunteers will seek a report card from the people about the work of the BJP.

The BJP, however, refuted the allegations pertaining to fake news and said that Congress was on the back foot because its misadventures and corruption were being regularly exposed on the social media. “The true face of the party is now exposed to people and the BJP has just brought out the anti-people activities of the Congress,” said Raman Malik, BJP spokesperson.