TMC digital drive to project Mamata as anti-BJP face
The TMC IT cell will craft slogans in Hindi, Urdu, English and Hindi to project West Bengal chief minister, Mamata Banerjee, as a key face of anti-BJP movement in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections next year.
The IT cell of TMC is headed by Lok Sabha MP and chief minister’s nephew, Abhishek Banerjee. Suparno Moitra, former regional director (east) Nasscom and a financial and business analyst and Colonel Diptanshu Chowdhury (retired), a Kargil war veteran form the next line of command. The choice of languages makes it evident that Mamata Banerjee’s party is trying to reach out a countywide audience.An audio message of the chief minister, circulated among the social media group administrators, emphasised extensive of Hindi as a medium.
“Remember this is a national election. So concentrate on Hindi as a medium of campaign, besides Bengali and English, so that you can spread the message of Trinamool at the national level,” the chief minister said in the audio message.
Pathik Kumar Mukherjee, a master-trainer of Trinamool’s IT cell, whose job is to train others in the cell in his respective locality, said that besides Hindi, Urdu will also be another important medium of of this digital campaign as instructed by the IT cell leadership.
Though Mamata Banerjee has said that she has no ambitions of being the Prime Minister – she likes to describe herself as a LIP (least important person) as opposed to a VIP – it is clear that the party will project her as a possible Prime Ministerial face.
“Be it demonetisation or illplanned GST or citizenship screening exercise in Assam, our chief minister has emerged as the key face of anti-people policies of the Union government. She has also proposed the formula of one-to-one contest against BJP in 2019 Lok Sabha elections that many parties have appreciated,” said TMC secretary general, Partha Chatterjee.
Political observer Debasish Sarkar, who is the principal of Chandernagore College, is sceptical of the efficacy of Trinamool’s cyber campaign.
“The party is restricted to Bengal only. A party can spread to other states only through grassroots-level activity. Digital campaign is a mode that any party with national ambition can try, but it should have a grassroots-level manpower management,” said Sarkar.
Though Trinamool was active on social media for the past few years, it is rapidly adding muscle to the drive. The party kicked off its process of recruiting 40,000 cyber warriors by conducting a workshop for 200 master trainers on June 20.
The blueprint and the slogans for the digital campaign will be finalised at a convention at a city auditorium on September 23.
“Mamata Banerjee is dreaming of being the Prime Minister. But it will remain a day dream. Her party is welcome to go to any extent to market her,” said Sayantan Basu, general secretary of BJP’s Bengal unit.
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