Chandigarh: It’s all-out war in social media before the assembly polls in Haryana. All parties have taken a leaf from the BJP’s book – in the general election the party used it with telling effectiveness - and started hogging the social media space with a sense of urgency hitherto alien in the electoral landscape of the state. The target is the young voter.
The advantages of social media campaigns are obvious - they are cost-effective and their reach among the masses is immense. With around 25 lakh users on Facebook, around 34 lakh internet users, not to mention approximately 35 lakh users of mobile phones, the importance of the new media in the state needs no overstating. With Haryana all set to go to the assembly poll on October 15, top leaders of various parties and candidates are making a conscious effort to make their presence felt on Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp. Nasty, sarcastic comments and cartoons lampooning politicians and their parties are also all over the online space.
Be it the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), the BJP or the Congress, all the parties are fighting the political battle not just on dusty roads, narrow lanes and by lanes, but in their respective drawing rooms too. While, the INLD and the Congress have taken the lead in the online war, the BJP, the original player of the game, seem to be lagging. Supporters of both the Congress and the INLD have created two Facebook accounts which have become extremely popular because of the parody content. Both the accounts have drawn thousands of likes and comments for their cartoons and displays.
Thus, it is Gulabi Gang v/s Indian National Tota Dal – the first refers to Congressmen wearing pink pagdis and the other to the INLD the leaders of which wear green turbans, the colour of the parrots. Sample this, "Hooda ka haseen sapna, har company mein commission ho apna" showing a cartoon of the Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda sitting on a cot in the house, face away from the running TV, dreaming instead of impending commission from various companies including Adani, Maruti, DLF and Reliance.
While the main plank of the INLD attack on the Congress is the alleged corruption by the party and its top leaders, the Congress in turn has been poking fun at the INLD as a party of parrots who shout much and does nothing concrete. The INLD has been referring to the Congress party as 'Golibaaz Gulabi Gang' (indirectly alleging corruption) and the INLD advertisement has been flashing on the screens of TV and social media sites for the last one and a half months.
A screenshot of the official Haryana Congress Facebook page.
The site of the supporters of Congress shows an aged parrot in the jail wearing dark glasses (referring indirectly to INLD supremo Om Prakash Chautala and the INLD symbol-spectacle) and thinking quietly, "Sachivalaya karunga band, Afsar na ho katai pareshan, jail mein baith karunga sub kaam (Will run the government from jail)". In the inset is a parrot wearing dark glasses uttering "trein, train".
This was in reference to the comment made by Om Prakash Chautala during the Jind rally on September 25 when he said he will take the oath of the Haryana Chief Minister from Tihar jail. The cartoon in bold letters says Indian National Tota Dal.
Of late, Hooda has been poking fun at Om Prakash Chautala’s remark, saying in public meetings every day that as chief minister he (Chautala) will run the Haryana government from jail and his cabinet of ministers would consist of prisoners and if anybody wants to meet the chief minister he will have to qualify to be an inmate of the jail!
The two sites run by supporters of the Congress and the INLD continuously update their sites with new cartoons, comments and they seem to have more than enough fodder for their cyber war. If the supporters of Congress attack the INLD for its top two leaders-Om Prakash Chautala and his son Ajay Singh Chautala being in jail for their alleged involvement in the JBT teachers recruitment scam, the INLD takes pot shot at Chief Minister Hooda, CLU controversies, Robert Vadra-DLF land deal, law and order situation, land acquisition, corruption, unemployment, atrocities on the Dalits in the state, acute water and power shortage etc. Volatile comments and nasty remarks always accompany these cartoons and caricatures.
Facebook users are leaving no opportunity to attack adversaries or politicians they dislike. For example some unidentified Facebook users have created a site, 'Justice for Geetika Sharma' community page to run down Gopal Kanda, the former Haryana Minister of State, Home who is out on bail and has formed a political party Haryana Lokhit Party (HLP) to contest assembly poll. Gopal kanda has two pages and four Facebook IDs. He manages his account personally and claims development of the state and the betterment of the people are his main agenda in the present poll.
It is not as if the social sites are all for attacking adversaries only. These sites are also being used gainfully to promote policies and programs of the political parties and the politicians. Supporters of the Congress party for example have been feeding the site with development works undertaken by the Hooda-led Congress government in the last ten years.
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