Congress's young guns wield IT to sweep Delhi polls

NEW DELHI: The Congress headquarters at Rajiv Bhawan on Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg are getting an "e-makeover". Armed with the latest technology, the IT cell is putting the party's outreach campaign in a hi-tech mode. The official Facebook page of Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee on Thursday announced the creation of a communication team led by tech-savvy youth who promise to infuse new life into Congress's committee on social media. The preparations have picked up with polls becoming inevitable in the capital.
As Congress work towards an organizational revamp, social media and a communication campaign will be given special attention. A visit to the IT cell on the fourth floor of Rajiv Bhawan brings you to a group of hands-on Congress leaders. The youths are busy tracking news along with editing messages, pictures and graphics to be uploaded on Facebook and Twitter. The prime news channels play on television screens being watched closely by party members. This 10-member communication group is supposed to assess and classifying news items as positive, negative or neutral. Recordings of all channels are being saved and catalogued, so that the clips can be retrieved for reference in case of a controversy.

Radhika Khera, general secretary of Delhi Pradesh Youth Congress, is coordinating the team's operations. This laptop-equipped professional points to 30 newspapers, including the local and district-level small-time papers being monitored for coverage of the party. A YouTube channel, where important speeches by senior Delhi leaders and videos of important programmes, protests and demonstrations will be uploaded,is ready for launch.

The DPCC Facebook page has a new cover featuring Congress president Sonia Gandhi, vice-president Rahul Gandhi and DPCC president Arvinder Singh. It shows pictures of the recent protests and the party's views on a range of issues.

The DPCC chief told TOI that the communication department got him officially on Twitter on Thursday. An orientation will be organized to bring all current and ex-MLAs, councillors as well as senior leaders on to Facebook, Twitter and Whatsapp. This will help them reach out to voters in their areas. The DPCC website too is going through a makeover.

Khera said a representative will be identified at the booth level to inform more people about the Congress social media campaign. This person will also popularize DPCC's initiatives so that people can access them on their computers and smartphones.

Congress is also creating a database of its members and dedicated voters, who will be getting SMS alerts on its stand on various issues.