Himachal LS polls: Congress, BJP duke it out on digital turf ahead of Jun 1 fray

Shimla, May 30 (PTI) As the voting date inches closer, politicians in Himachal Pradesh are letting go of no opportunity in trolling their rivals, more often than not choosing as their weapon the social media and its memetic powers.

A scramble for gaffes is on between the two key political parties in the fray here – Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party –, whose followers have been posting slip-ups and blunders of their rivals, in some cases, to cut them down to size, in others, to bring to fore internal cracks.

A peep into the official accounts of both parties reveals that they are big on using bytes of the general public, especially those with a flair for a good rant.

War rooms have been set up for cyber-rattling to catch opponents on the wrong foot.

For instance, the BJP has uploaded a video showing Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge mispronouncing the name of the town where he was addressing a rally, as well as the names of the party colleagues from the state.

Congress, in return, ran with a video of BJP’s Mandi Lok Sabha candidate Kangana Ranaut, which shows her saying “jab hathi chalta hai to kutte bhonkte hain” (the elephant keeps walking as the dogs keeps barking), when she was asked if it bothers her that some of her party mates were not comfortable with her.

All the same, the officials of the two parties insist they want to get people’s attention on the back of the work their governments did, or will do.

“We are focusing on a positive campaign revolving around our manifesto, development and party agenda and have roped in local talent to add pun and connect with the local people,” Congress social media cell (HP) chairman Rohit Wats Dhami told the PTI.

BJP state social media head Sushil Rathore said his party’s focus is on the aid the central government gave to the Congress-run state government when it needed it the most, during the last monsoon, when several structures were washed away.

“The BJP is concentrating on central issues like construction of the national highways, welfare schemes, and projects given to the state by the centre through content, reels, videos of beneficiaries and slogans,” he said.

Both parties are banking heavily on WhatsApp groups to send their pitch to the workers, allies, supporters, and still-on-the-fence voters. The BJP has 8,000 such groups as compared to Congress, which has 4,000.

In the realm of social media, the state BJP has 2.85 lakh followers on Instagram, 3.13 lakh on Facebook, and 2.90 lakh on X. In comparison, the state Congress has 26,000 followers on Instagram, 3.50 lakh on Facebook, and 70,000 on X.

Polling will be held in Himachal Pradesh on June 1 for four Lok Sabha and six assembly seats.