J’khand BJP uses dialects to connect to rural voters
BJP’s social media team has been train mainly tribal youths about the ‘power of the hashtag’ and how to circulate ‘positive messages’ in the local dialects
In the tribal dominated Jharkhand, for its “Mission 65 plus,” the ruling BJP has roped in tribal youths to relay election related messages in local dialects through the social media platform.
With litreacy rate above 65% and internet reach almost doubled in the last five years, the ruling BJP’s social media team has been training these youths, mainly tribal youths, about the “power of the hashtag,” how to circulate “positive messages” in the local dialects, especially to voters in the rural areas.
The 81 member state Assembly is scheduled to go to polls by NovemberDecember. Other than the development plank, the poll campaign will also highlight how for the first time since its creation, the state saw a chief minister, Raghubar Das, completing his full tenure. During the last assembly polls, the BJP-AJSU alliance had won 42 seats.
“Though English and Hindi are also a comman lingo in Jharkhand, there are many dialects spoken in different regions of the state and one feels more connected if the conversation is in his/her dialect. We do have election material in different dialects earlier also but using dialects to convey messages through the social media is fairly new,” said the state’s Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) unit head, Amit Singh. A social media workshop was held recently to train how to use the social media platforms to relay “positive messages” during the poll campaigning, which was attended by around 600 youths from all the 513 mandals in the state.
Other than the Modi government’s achievements and its people centric schemes, the ruling BJP’s social media team will be circulating about the state government’s acheivements, including rural health mission, availability of cellphones to women for the health mission, `1 land registry for women, Sakhi Mandal, infrastructure development among others.