The General Elections 2014 has set a new trend of campaigning. At least half of the campaign by almost all the candidates of twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad was carried out on the Social Networking platform, especially the Facebook.
With lakhs of voters, especially the youth active on Facebook and even Whatsup, the political parties and candidates effectively used them to convey their messages. The candidates hired dedicated administrators to run separate pages and IDs that they have created. All the activities like Padayatra, public meetings, door-to-door campaigns and other publicity material was posted on the FB walls by the Admins and the other fans and sympathisers of candidates. Although the Election Commission has imposed certain restrictions on conduct of public meetings and other modes of campaign, there were no limitations on using the social media network.
Those who missed the speeches of their favourite leaders in public meetings, watched them later on YouTube and their links were effectively shared on FB, Twitter and Whatsup. The social media also worked as a tool to target the opponents.
The Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) and its rival Majlis Bachao Tehreek (MBT) were engaged in a virtual battle in cyberspace. Every move of their candidates was reported on the social media. All the speeches and pictures were shared which eventually led to an unending debate among the users on who is the best candidate for a particular constituency. While both the MIM and MBT had official pages, there were dozens of unofficial pages which carried out the campaign on their behalf.
Most of the FB pages were giving live updates of all the activities right from the filing of nomination to the end of polling and thereafter. The debate is still on the likely outcome of the elections. Every user is coming out with his own statistics and logic to claim that his favourite leader will win the elections.
The use of smart phones by youth and their active mode on social media have also helped the political parties. Small businessman or even vendors and students have access to the internet even on their phones. These people, who are voters, have tracked the public meetings and the latest updates from their leaders. The FB pages were also used for the unhealthy act of portraying politicians from rival parties in a bad light.
While the MBT supporters posted pictures and videos of Yakutpura candidate Farhat Khan swearing on Holy Quran to convey that he was not acting at the behest of communal parties, the MIM leaders posted the unseen footage of Akbaruddin Owaisi’s surgery after the attack.
Another video which went viral was of an old man questioning Asaduddin Owaisi on why he was not uniting all Muslims. “When TDP and BJP can enter into an alliance, then why can’t you leave one seat for the MBT?” he asked the MIM supremo. However, a shocked Asad Owaisi left the place by not answering the question by saying that it was a mosque.