Nearly 65,000 ‘cyber warriors’ of the BJP are all set to take on ‘Rajiv Ke Sipahi’ of the Congress in cyber space to woo young voters on social media platforms in the upcoming Madhya Pradesh Assembly polls. The BJP’s state information technology (IT) cell in-charge, Shivraj Singh Dabi, said about 65,000 ‘cyber warriors’ have been deployed by the party in the last three months and 5,000 more will be deputed shortly, The state Congress has set up a team of around 4,000 ‘Rajiv Ke Sipahi’ (named after their leader and former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi credited with the digital revolution in India) to battle it out against the BJP on social media. The Congress will train 5,000 more people for the task, the state party’s IT cell in-charge, Dharmendra Bajpai, said. “We are going to hold training sessions in the state’s revenue divisions from June 25,” he said.
Both the leaders said they were going to reach out to people on popular social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter. They would specially focus on WhatsApp, owing to its wide reach. “During elections, our biggest weapon is going to be WhatsApp,” Bajpai said. On the BJP’s strategy, Dabi said, “We are going to be doubly active on WhatsApp as it’s the biggest communication tool, specially to reach out to commoners and villagers.”