Since 2013 Indian elections have emerged as the most followed event in the country. Two very impressive common man turned politicians intervened the scene after decades, becoming larger-than-life personalities. They both fought tooth and nail and surfaced out victorious in their respective ways. Their sheer charismatic personalities and aura had a huge impact on the masses. Their campaigning took from the streets to televisions and to the internet. Let me stop here to introduce the subjects- Mr.Narendra Modi and Mr.Arvind Kejriwal. They both are equally idealistic and hard-working. While one came from a humble background, the other made it big with an IIT degree and by being an Ex-Indian Revenue service. The underlying rationale of serving the nation is the only common thread behind both of their intentions. The second underlying commonality amongst both men is the effective use of Social media. Though the age group of both the persons varies, their zeal to reach people through the social media mode did not deter. This was the first time in the history of Indian politics where social media was used to this maximum extent. Both Mr.Kejriwal and Mr.Modi used social networking at full throttle.
Modi Mantra
Mr.Modi started highlighting their party’s election manifestos, Gujarat government initiatives, public programs, growth rates, public distribution system on their website. Mr.Modi also used social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter effectively to communicate his thought process on various topics. The Japanese Prime minister Mr. Shinzo Abe is an adherent follower of Mr.Modi apart from other 4.99 million people. This is a staggering presence for any Indian politician in the social media limelight. There is more to it. Post his taking over as an Indian prime Minister he has taken many initiative programs like http://mygov.in/ page wherein ideas can be shared either in the DISCUSS or DO forums. This only led to greater citizen participation and inclusiveness.
Candid Kejriwal
On the other hand, the IIT prodigy Mr. Kejriwal has used social media in such a way that he made local presence felt global. He internationalized his party by challenging corruption-free governance, effective funding mechanisms and the main threat to Indians is the youngest lot of politicians in his party like the famous Rajeev Chadha. Each of these factors has been effectively publicized using social media forums such as Facebook, Twitter, and the party website. His transparent part funding and candidatures of various party members with a report card called MLA report card had been widely viewed.
In the biggest ever political election rallies social media had been used or rather exploited at the fullest reaching millions of people across the globe. Post the elections, the winning was celebrated too in the social media forums. Thus the recent elections had marked the beginning of a new level of politics nicknamed social media elections or for short “Electronic Elections”.
This only led people to understand politicians in a better fashion. They are introduced to transparent campaigning which made them judge the politician’s candidature better. Also, constant updates through Twitter made people come close to election campaigns, this also encouraged greater citizen participation by means of increased voters. The preservation of this social media momentum and accelerating it further will see metamorphic changes in the coming days and this can be the beginning of new age elections in the country. Thanks to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google +, Instagram, and many more interesting social networking applications for shrinking the spaces getting us close to the country’s politics.
Never before had India seen an election campaign as huge as this. Thanks to the optimum use of social media the shift in Indian politics changed forever!