UP assembly polls: Samajwadi Party designs digicontent with youth, poor in mind

Creating small, impactful videos that can be downloaded without using much internet data, virtual addresses that may or may not be showcased using LED screens, displaying campaign content through social media and WhatsApp groups -- the Samajwadi Party is gearing up its digital campaigning and finalising its digi-format amid the many challenges it has thrown up. The party has already kickstarted its door to door campaigning.

On Saturday, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav held a meeting with the party's media panelists and workers involved in the media teams, and sought their suggestions. While the EC will review its ban on physical rallies and roadshows on January 15 after assessing the Covid-19 situation, political parties are leaving nothing to chance and beefing up their virtual plans.

"With our voters being mainly the youth and the poor, they will be reluctant to download any large video that consumes a lot of internet data. So, it was decided that small, impactful videos under 100 MB should be created," said a senior SP leader on condition of anonymity. There are apprehensions within certain sections of the SP about internet speed or connectivity being meddled with by the local administration in areas where the SP is strong, to put a spanner on their campaign.


Apart from Facebook and YouTube, the party has a strong WhatsApp network being handled by its digital wing. The party has formed a minimum of around 8-10 WhatsApp groups per constituency with each group having 256 members, as per the rules. While this is already being used to create digital campaign content, the party is yet to take a call on LED screens to be put up on the ground level for a large number of people to hear SP leaders.

"Even if we put up screens at the block levels across the state, we will need around 25,000 screens. We will take a call about it soon," the leader said.

The BJP had put up thousands of screens and televisions for people at the ground level to watch the addresses of its leaders during the Bihar elections in 2020. However, SP spokesperson Rajeev Rai told ET that since large gatherings are disallowed, crowds would not be allowed to assemble in front of such screens too. Rajeev Rai said "door to door" campaigning will be the mainstay and the party has already begun targetted door-to-door campaigning.