Bhubaneswar: A day after BJD supremo and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s thrust on ‘simple living and high thinking’, the BJD leaders and MLAs are now learning tips to maximise their reach to public using social media, especially WhatsApp.
The ruling dispensation has started holding a training session for its MLAs and district leaders and observers on the use of social media, such as WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter to ensure its presence is firmly felt on digital platforms.
Organised at Patnaik’s residence here the social media workshop Wednesday focused on the effective use of these applications.
Accordingly MLAs, leaders and office bearers of the ruling party from all the districts attended the session taken by experts on the first day and were taught the use of social media applications, especially the popular messaging app WhatsApp to counter the propaganda of the opposition parties and reach out to public highlighting its achievements in past 17 years and also address the grievance of people.
To expand its outreach leveraging social media the party has worked out a comprehensive strategy, sources said. Special WhatsApp groups have been created at party level to keep co-ordination among leaders, while thousands of groups will also be created at district and constituency-level to reach out to people and address their grievances, party insiders said. “We are planning to reach out to people using social media, especially via WhatsApp. Accordingly the party leaders will coordinate with one another at various level in the coming days,” said BJD spokesperson, Arun Sahoo.
Opposition Congress and BJP said that the move will hardly have any impact on people. “They are going to receive large number of complaints in these groups as they have hardly done anything in the last 17 years,” said Congress MLA Anshuman Mohanty.
PNN
