Gujarat BJP is strengthening their day-to-day digital campaign to woo Gen-Z and Gen-Y voters who spend an average of 8 hours a day online. Consolidating the votes of millennials will ensure the 150+ seat target of the BJP in the upcoming 2022 assembly elections.
“We had started our digital campaign focusing on 2022 assembly elections with the hashtag #BJP4Gujarat2022 and #BJP4Gujarat“, a BJP social media worker told Vibes of India.
He added that to reach out to the 1.25 crore young voters, “we are extensively pushing our social media campaign relentlessly across all platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube and messaging fora like WhatsApp, Messenger and Telegram. Gujarat has around 4 crore, eligible voters.
Speaking to VO!, an Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC) worker said currently there were 5,000 plus ‘Digital Ambassadors‘ in the state whose primary role is to tweet ‘Happy Facts‘ about BJP and promote the achievements of leaders on Twitter and Facebook.
Daily they are creating an average digital impression of around 10,000 consistently since October 2021. This consistent digital strategy is a challenge for other political parties competing with BJP in Gujarat.
The latest Telecom Authority of India (TRAI) report states that the urban internet subscribers in Gujarat per 100 population stood at 99.34. Hence, a digital election strategy is a necessity for the BJP to ensure electoral victory.
The Digital Ambassadors are well aware of the data from the 2019 Lok Sabha post-poll study conducted by Lokniti, which confirmed BJP as the most preferred party among first-time young voters. The BJP’s vote share increased by four percentage points among first-time young voters in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. But this was comparatively lower than the party’s gain from voters of other age groups. The party’s vote share in 2019 among those in the 23-27 age bracket was eight percentage points higher than in 2014.
The source said that the primary job of the digital ambassadors is to connect with the Gujarati Millenials through social media hashtag browsing. Also, region-specific ambassadors connect with Millenials through various WhatsApp groups and enlist their support.
The digital news creates an impact among the young voters who are not yet committed firmly to any particular party or ideology and who have little memory of previous governments. In Gujarat, the BJP has been in power since 1995 and for the past 27 years, young voters had played a major role in the electoral success of the party.
The source said that happy facts help to mobilise the political branding of BJP’s state and national level communication of leadership, ideology, performance in governance and policies. This makes the new voters and the existing millennial voters aware of the schemes and welfare measures.
The party will also convert the online campaign facts into small booklets of facts about how the BJP transformed the state of Gujarat. The assigned BJP workers will distribute these booklets in a door-to-door campaign in all the constituencies and also pass them on to households in their native regions.
Read: Central Gujarat A Challenge For Congress, Though It Hopes To Cash In On Tribal Unrest
