The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : BJP to target voters with SMS, email

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Sunday, Mar 23, 2008
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

BJP to target voters with SMS, email

B.S. Satish Kumar

It is setting up an information technology cell

Party plans region-wise election manifestos
Retired officials to be drafted for the work

BANGALORE: The Bharatiya Janata Party is gearing up to launch a hi-tech campaign for the coming Assembly elections. According to a senior party functionary, it is in the process of setting up an information technology cell, which will have several IT experts. Email and SMS will be used to reach out to the youth, those in the IT sector and the urban middle-class and upper-middle-class sections.

“We are planning to contact a minimum of 50 lakh people through these means of quick communication. Instead of just sending a one-off SMS or email, we will contact them repeatedly. In all, we might send a total of nearly one crore such messages,” he said.

These methods will allow them to make personalised appeals that may not be possible during the door-to-door campaign as people may be away at work.

However, the main hitch is that the IT-savvy and upper middle-class people are not known for their keenness to go to the polling booth. Hence, the use of modern communication technology is also an attempt to persuade them to vote.

The party is also planning to improve the quality of its audio-video public campaign by increasing the use of IT tools.

The party has decided to evolve region-wise election manifestos with different sets of proposals and programmes for each region depending on its requirements and problems.

A separate agenda for Bangalore will also be unveiled. The Bangalore-related agenda will deal with civic amenities such as drinking water, power supply and transport. The party has drafted the services of retired officials from various civic agencies including the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation, the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board and the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board for helping it to focus on the proposals for Bangalore.

Manifesto panel

The BJP on Saturday constituted a 10-member poll manifesto committee headed by the former Minister V.S. Acharya, MLC.

The members of the committee are the former Chief Secretary A. Ravindra; K.B. Shanappa, MP; Basavaraj Bommai, MLC; general secretary S. Suresh Kumar and leaders Mumtaz Ali Khan, Yogish Bhat, Pramila Nesargi and S. Ganjigatti. D.S. Veeraiah, MLC, will be the convener.

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