A mega cyber war looms over election-bound MP

Both the ruling BJP and the Opposition Congress have realised that more than the foot soldiers or workers in the field cyber warriors will play a key role in winning Assembly polls in November that will set the tone for the 2019 Lok Sabha contest.

Bhopal: The upcoming Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections scheduled for November and December  will see a war of a different kind. Both frontline political parties — the ruling BJP and the Opposition Congress — have reoriented strategies to win over voters, more with digital influence than door-to-door campaign.

Both the rival parties have set up IT cells at state, district, block and booth levels.

Nearly 1.5 lakh cyber warriors of both BJP and Congress are gearing up for a battle in the virtual world to win the upcoming Assembly elections for their respective parties.”It is the cyber warriors more than the foot soldiers (party workers), who will play a key role during election campaign,” member of a Congress IT cell told this newspaper here on Thursday. His party has gone on a massive drive to hire 65,000 tech-savvy youth to man its IT cell.

“Our job is challenging. We don’t merely upload posts, tweet or re-tweet messages. We are engaged in social-media analysis, data crunching, digital media projections and cyber operations against rival political groups,” a key strategist in ruling BJP IT cell here told this newspaper.

“Our job is to project the central and state governments’ achievements through social media so as to create a “feel good” environment thus countering a possible anti-incumbency factor,” he said.

It is not as simple as it appears. The challenge lies in countering the moves by rival parties to vitiate the “feel good” environment by fomenting anti-incumbency through fake news and mischievous actions,” BJP IT cell chief Shivraj Singh Dhabi told this newspaper.

“It will be a no-holds barred “war”. There are no rules, no ethics and no mercies. The sole mission will be to turn “heroes” in the rival camps into villains,” a cyber strategist said.

Demos have already been on display in the form of short video clips by the rival IT cells. A video clip purportedly released by BJP’s IT cell last month showed the three Congress “heroes”, Kamal Nath, Jyotiraditya Scindia and Digvijay Singh trying to dislodge chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. The video went viral causing discomfort in the Congress camp.

While Mr Chouhan enacted the role of “Angad” in the spoof video, Mr Nath was the demon king Ravan and the other two Congress leaders his aides.

Countering it, the Congress purportedly released a video exposing an unsavoury incident witnessed at a BJP workers’ meet in Jabalpur on June 12. In the video, Mr Chouhan and state party president Rakesh Singh were seen trying to outsmart each other to be by BJP national president Amit Shah’s side when he was being offered a huge garland. A video catching the incident has gone viral in social media much to Mr Chouhan’s embarrassment.

The BJP saw the hand of the Congress in the exposure. “Mischief alone can be countered by mischief,” a member of the Congress IT cell argued, dropping hints of an ugly fight ahead between the duo. “Basically, our role is to make or break the image of politicians,” he added.

Elaborating, Congress IT cell chief Dharmendra Vajpayee said, “The Congress has, however, decided to adopt a positive social media strategy to take on BJP in the elections. We have decided not to poke fun on rival party leaders with spoof videos. Rather we will focus on building issues against the BJP.”

WhatsApp has come as a handy tool for the BJP IT cell strategists in influencing the voters.

“A survey conducted by the party revealed that WhatsApp has the largest reach among people, particularly rural mass. With Facebook and Twitter having a limited reach, WhatsApp will be our key tool during election campaign,” Mr Dhabi said.

The BJP IT cell has played a key role in foiling the bid by the Congress to prop up the recently held 10-day farmers’ stir (June 1-10) for political gains ahead of the Assembly polls in the state.

The prime task of the BJP IT cell will, however, be to check and stop fake news and information and respond with facts, promote policies of the party and the government and expose misguiding spoofs and fake videos.