The young in Goa who remained logged on to happily log off from the mundane world of politics saw the online version of the glass ceiling being broken as one twitter handle and several hashtags bearing a name Narendra Modi bombarded their timelines and Facebook inboxes. For the first time, Goa’s first-time voters got up, close and personal to a national presidential style election, all from one venue – their phones or laptops. So what’s the message? That the Prime Minister is a twitter buddy and a FB friend.
The 2014 Lok Sabha Elections saw many firsts. Be it the first ‘selfie’ by a politician, the first 3D political rally, the first political mobile app, or the branding of a political party on T-shirts, mobile panels and laptop skins. The youngsters in Goa had never seen an invasion of ‘privacy in their space’ – the social media space. Right from Facebook to Twitter and political blogs to interviews on YouTube, the youth of Goa consumed information related to the elections in a big way, thanks to social media. And many Goans confess, that this exposure in turn, influenced their choice of voting, thereby revealing the success of a totally unconventional method of campaigning that succeeded and how!
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Anish Thimanna works with a social media company. A Goan lad who recently moved to Bangalore, Anish was, and continues to be, very active in the social space and tweets with his handle @hotshotcoorg. He says, “Social media played a big role in the 2014 Lok Sabha Elections. Politics is a subject in school curriculum from Std V onwards. However, post that, most youngsters often have no clue about what is happening in our country. Since most youngsters spend their time on Facebook and Twitter, the 2014 elections reached out to us in the cyber space and made us aware of things like what politics truly is, who the candidates are, and how they are going to play their cards. Following several eminent bloggers on Facebook made me gain an insight as to who the right candidate is and who to vote for. Similarly, few twitter personalities like Kanishka Sinha, Sushant Taing, Joshua Neeraj, Vidyut and @ikaveri kept me abreast of the political scenario in our country.” While Anish continued to grasp information from Twitter and blogs, Pramay Sawant from Ponda witnessed a change in the way political parties went about with their campaign for the 2014 elections. He feels that 2014 can be described as India’s first open sourced election in many ways. He says, “Modi set the tone for crowdsourcing when he first called for inputs for an upcoming speech at Fergusson College, via Facebook. This move by a politician was completely unprecedented. It not only showed his humility but also exhibited his willingness to implement suggestions from the masses.”
Rosswyn Fernandes, a student from Vasco was immune to the lure of online campaigns and hence did not let them influence his choice. However, he makes an important point about what he observed. He says, “People’s reactions to online campaigns by themselves are a hugely influential factor. At times one sees a link to party propaganda but before examining further, the comments that are attached to them makes one very subconsciously tilt in a certain direction. Everyone has their own perceptions towards each party. Some will speak for, and others against. Finally the one with the majority wins. In this case, the majority could well have been swayed by such propaganda.”
While most of the Goan youth found themselves in the middle of an explosion of information in the social media space, even those who were more concerned about other happenings the country like IPL, couldn’t save themselves from being exposed to the election fever. Aditya Timble, an ardent fan of IPL was not too keen on following the elections, but when he found videos of speeches made by political parties competing for space with IPL videos on YouTube, he knew that the political scenario in India was changing. He says, “Out of curiosity, and to see what the hype was all about, I watched Arnab Goswami’s interviews with Rahul Gandhi and Narendra Modi. I also watched the war of words between Modi and Priyanka. After watching the videos, I couldn’t help but think (about Rahul) that, ‘here’s a man who cannot play, but wants to become the captain of the team because his sister is an excellent cheerleader’. It was mind-boggling.”
It can now be said that despite BJP and Congress having spent approximately the same amount of money and energy for their respective campaigns, the BJP used their resources in a far more effective manner. Concentrating a major chunk of their resources in the online sphere not only helped the BJP reach the young voter, but enabled the party to involve them in their campaign. The young Goan voter found himself/herself exposed to information being bombarded on social media platforms, which in turn influenced their choice of vote. Other political parties, a bit late in realising the importance of the social media space, attempted a change in their game-plan, but it was in vain. In the end, Modi beat his opponents hands down in the Twitter race and the social media war. Hence, ab ki baar, it indeed is #NaMOforPM
