Is India Going To Campaign Digitally In Covid-19 Restrictions?

Poll bound states are now looking at going digital in their campaigning. The previous experiences weren’t the best when lockdown and curfews were imposed last year. Election campaigning had put caution to the wind and campaigned amongst public, without masks or maintaining social distancing protocols.

Now, there is a ban on five states and they are all looking at the virtual medium to go ahead with campaigning. After the Election Commission has announced a ban on physical campaigning, Samajwadi Party (SP) supremo Akhilesh Yadav hurriedly called a press conference. He has reasons to feel insecure as in comparison BJP and Congress are already way ahead in arranging hi tech gadgets for their election campaigning.

The smaller parties that are rightfully working on the ground are now sweating up badly. The physical attire might need some change, but what is really coming on play is the use of some complex demographic and psychographics profiling that is making use of advanced data sciences are now being arrayed to reach out to their voter base.

Those using the smartphone are the best bet to catch. Better still are the ‘voice only’ phone users that can be given in the much-needed campaign dose. But BJP and Congress are a different ball game. Social media cells of BJP and Congress are very sharp propaganda machines employing dozens of content creators to create and disseminate propaganda material – digital banners, posters, animations, videos, info-commercials, blog posts, tweets and similar through their buzzing content factories.

So conventional campaigning is a thing of the past- but this doesn’t work for the Indian who isn’t completely glued to the Internet either. The smaller newer parties might not be able to climb the bandwagon. Despite the Covid-19 lockdown, the election campaign tactics are bound to change.