Cooch Behar: It must be surprisingly shocking that a 36-year old IT BJP worker is a group admin of as many as 1,114 WhatsApp groups including party’s Facebook page and Twitter official handle.
Yes, this man solely handles these groups in Cooch Behar where the first phase of Lok Sabha Elections took place yesterday, Indian Express reports.
Be it party office, home or in a small pharmacy that this IT man runs in Gopalpur village, Dipak Das has his eyes glued to his two smartphones handling party’s activities on social media.
“I am the party’s district IT cell convenor. Here, I am an admin in 1,114 WhatsApp groups, I manage the party’s Facebook page and I organise Twitter trends,” says Das.
But that is not all. He said that its because of workers like him that his party is able to reach voters in “many places” where “social media is a silent weapon”, where “it is not physically possible for BJP to campaign because of the terror and supremacy” of the Trinamool Congress.
This IT man said he is alone the admin in 229 groups on one number and 885 on another where each group has a maximum of 250 people and these numbers tend to change on day to day basis as people leave and others are added.
Recalling his busy shift during airstrikes in Pakistan, Das who is married said the party worked for 24 hours straight.
We got numbers from our early days of the campaign where we managed to get the numbers of all the smartphones in every family and others got during party’s national online membership campaign he said.
Though an undergraduate with only Intermediate as his qualifications Das joined BJP in 2014 “for Narendra Modi” and was made the block general secretary.
It was in the year 2015, Dad got his smartphone and soon started to campaign for the BJP in social media. But this year, this party has bought him a good cellphone worth Rs 10,000 and a portable charger and guess what the party also takes care of his travel bills.
He says he received his training in social media by the BJP state IT cell in Kolkata.
“I have even participated in a session chaired by party president Amit Shah in Howrah. He called us IT yodhas and gave us a list of dos and don’ts in social media,” he explains.
In this region Cooch Behar, Das leads a team of 40 who are armed with cellphones and two DSLR cameras taken on rent.
But he says his job needs him to be free all the time and keeps this hands free as well as there complete work is based on social media where they have to support, like, share, start trending the message as soon as his party puts it out.
He also accepts to covert operations where fake accounts are used to penetrate the groups, where some pretend of these party’s, they watch what that particular party team is doing and report to us.
“We have a wide network. They keep a watch, and send us pictures and videos of Opposition leaders and workers caught in scandals. Recently, someone posted a picture of a local Opposition leader in a compromising position. We immediately made it viral,” says Das.
He also explained a method to attract people’s attention. Sharing news apart from party’s message, interacting starting debates on various issues all attracts people and then we post a few party messages he said.
We also take help from Professors and teachers we get engaged in the social media debates he said.
He also added that they expect violence during certain periods and their job is to get the pictures and videos and make it viral on social media.