Pehle 'APP': Raje 'virtually' ahead of Gehlot, Rajasthan Election, Vasundhara Raje, Rajasthan BJP, Ashok Gehlot, BJP, NDA, BJP vs Congress in rajasthan.
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- Category: Rajasthan News
- Last Updated: Thursday, 22 January 2015 20:50
Pehle 'APP': Raje 'virtually' ahead of Gehlot.
JAIPUR: Mammoth rallies with honking vehicles belching out smoke, decked up elephants and people coming from mera gaon, mera desh have been an integral part of Indian ballot battles.
But the battle pattern has changed "app"tly. Earlier, it was the ballot paper, then came the EVMs and now internet has changed the scenario to a great extent. Today, the buzz is the "virtual" world. Most candidates have specialized "apps" which not only makes information more accessible, but also helps to hold politicians more accountable for their words and actions.
With Rajasthan going to polls in December, BJP state president Vasundhara Raje and chief minister Ashok Gehlot too have taken their political fight online. This comes at a time when 72.9 lakh first time and in all probability tech-savvy voters from the state are set to change the political game.
Any smartphone user can now download the Vasundhara Raje and the Ashok Gehlot apps to get regular updates on the activities of these leaders. These apps provide the platform for a user to post their views be it either on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube.
Admitting the importance of internet, Ajay Maken, Congress' communication department head, said, "Social media is increasingly becoming important, but is unlikely to have much impact on the coming elections. In the ensuing elections, to some extent in the 2014 general elections but majorly in the elections thereafter, the social media would be playing a significant role."
Currently, the official Raje FB page directed from the Vasundara app has 5,26, 322 likes. The Ashok Gehlot FB page has 2,46,976 likes.
Raje's twitter handle has 28,002 followers while Gehlot staggers at 5020 followers. Sadly, Gehlot's twitter handle is unverified as of yet. In the YouTube videos, most of Raje's footages easily cross the double digit mark while Gehlot's hardly crosses 200 with some not even 10 viewers.
Clearly, these figures show that Raje is more in touch with the tech-savvy voters and they reach out to her when it comes to virtual communication. The only point where Gehlot scores over Raje is the news section of the app, where Gehlot's app updates news from newspapers regularly.
In both the apps, one can gather information about the leaders, their past work, current activities and their vision. While, the future event listings on Raje's app is missing, Gehlot's listings are entirely blank. This leaves a "virtual" void for the tech-savvy voters and they are left with a lot of guesswork.