Cong campaign to fire a question to BJP everyday till polls
Through the hashtag campaign that kicked off on January 13, the state Congress will be throwing one question everyday for 30 days at the opposition BJP as a run up to the February 15 assembly elections
The Congress has launched a campaign titled ‘Dhol Ki Pol’ targeting the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in poll-bound Uttarakhand.
Through the hashtag campaign that kicked off on January 13, the state Congress will be throwing one question everyday for 30 days at the opposition BJP as a run up to the February 15 assembly elections.
While the first question targeted the contribution of the BJP’s five Lok Sabha members towards the hill state’s core issues since getting elected in 2014, the second question posted on Saturday asked the BJP how it will “face the public after murdering democracy in Uttarakhand” in March last year.
As per the information technology (IT) Cell of the state Congress, the move has been launched with a special focus on reaching out to the social media savvy youth voters, who comprise over 57% of the state’s total electorate. Of over 74.95 lakh voters in Uttarakhand, around 42.84 lakh voters are aged below 40 years.
Amarjeet Singh, state head of the Congress’ IT cell, said that the campaign will be accentuated on major online platforms like social networking site Facebook, micro blogging site Twitter, photo-sharing service Instagram and mobile messenger WhatsApp.
“Our social media team members are active down till the booth level…they will further propagate the campaign besides ensuring direct debate with the BJP, if it chooses to answer our questions,” Singh said.
“The idea is to connect with people, especially with the youngsters who are highly active on social media and constitute more than half of the state’s voters, by prompting them to ask critical questions to the BJP,” he said.
In September last year, the state Congress had launched another social media campaign, which exhorted people to upload their pictures along with a brief question for PM Narendra Modi using hashtag #15_lakh. The campaign drew on the PM’s promise of bringing back the black money stashed abroad and crediting Rs 15 lakh to each citizen’s account, made ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
Meanwhile, retorting to the Congress’ campaign, the opposition BJP said that it was “not answerable” to anyone but the public. “People know what we have done for the state’s development. Why should we answer their questions? We are answerable to the public and not to them (Congress)?” Devendra Bhasin, BJP’s state media in charge, told HT.