BJP and Congress neck-and-neck in cyber race

IN Digital Media | 20/03/2014

The Bharatiya Janata Party (www.bjp.org) and the Congress (www.inc.in), the principal rivals in the Indian political arena, are neck-to-neck in the cyber race. However, BJP and its prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi are ahead in terms of exploiting social media if compared to the Congress and its vice president Rahul Gandhi. 

Mr.Modi is the most aggressive user of the website and social media. With a huge social media base of 10 million Facebook likes, 3.47 million Twitter followers and 126969 YouTube subscribers, he is by far the most popular candidate online. In a head-to-head comparison, Rahul Gandhi does not have a Twitter, Facebook or YouTube account.

The new entrant, AamAadmi Party (http://www.aamaadmiparty.org/), however, has stolen a march over all the six national parties in effectively exploiting websites and social media in the LokSabha election campaign. 

Social media statistics of the seven national political parties

The websites of the BJP, Congress, Nationalist Congress Party (http://www.ncp.org.in/) , CPI (http://www.communistparty.in/), CPI (M) (http://www.cpim.org/) and Bahujan Samaj Party (http://www.bspindia.org/), do not mention anything about the sources of their funding.  The data of their websites and social media was recorded as part of a study on March 6, 2014, when the Election Commission of India announced the schedule for LokSabha poll.

BJP has a provision for online donation. The Congress, however, expects its well-wishers to write a cheque and send it to party headquarters in Delhi via a courier or through snail mail. The NCP, CPI(M), CPI, and BSP do not even appeal to the people for donations. Only the AAP has an elaborate system to receive online donations, deliver online receipts and compute the data with names and addresses of donors.

Of these parties only the CPI(M) informed the people how they spent its funds last year. It has put up an audited statement of the party accounts for the year 2013.

These are some of the findings of the study undertaken by Prof. Kiran  Thakur and Mr.Sagar Atre at Pune-based FLAME School of Communication since January 9, 2014. The findings were published in the inaugural issue of FLAME’s Working Paper series formally launched by its President, Prof. Indira Parikh on March 10, 2014.

The websites of the CPI (M), CPI, and BSP are characterised by poor quality of design. They have not used graphs, graphics, photos and video clips to make the websites interesting and interactive. No attention has been paid to the convenience of the visitors. The indifferent attitude of the CPI towards its website can be realised from the fact that http://www.communistparty.in/ is run on a blogger page and is not a full-fledged website. These parties do not have active presence on the social media. Their websites are not updated for weeks while their counterparts--BJP, Congress, NCP and AAP -- update every day, sometimes several times in a day. These four parties have used their websites as platforms to inform, and educate the people on the topical issues, and stands of the respective organization on these issues.

However, no party has ever mentioned anything about their electoral alliances and has explained why they had to enter into alliance in the past or for coming election. They do not have even a formal appeal to voters to vote for their allies.

No party was able to upload its manifesto until the day the election dates were announced, because this important document was not ready for any of the six national parties. However, AAP has a unique feature. Its website mentions important issues of 70 constituencies in which its candidates will contest and how they will take these up. 

The FLAME School of Communication has planned to monitor these websites until the election results of all the constituencies are announced, according to Prof. Thakur.

For observations about each of the seven websites from January 9, 2014 to March 6, 2014, read on:

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)

The BJP is the most comprehensive and aggressive party in terms of presence on the internet (www.bjp.org). The party is prompt about keeping information on its website updated. The party uses its website effectively as its mouthpiece. It also has an informative series of articles on current topics, examples include the resignation of eminent legal experts like FaliNariman and retired Supreme Court Justice KT Thomas on March 3, 2014, from the Lokpal selection panel, or the passage of reservation bills by the President of India on March 3, 2014, just before the code of conduct came in force, the issue of women’s rights on Women’s Day and others. 

Some information, critical for communication with the voters, is missing from the website. It does not post any financial information, even though one of the most critical poll issues for its campaigning is transparency and corruption-free governance. It does not have information about source of party funds or the list of donors and donations.

Another important attribute missing from the BJP website is the manifesto. A month before the elections, on March 7, 2014, the BJP did not have a manifesto ready for its party.

Poll alliances is another factor which is an important decision-making points for the people who intend to vote for that party. The BJP, however, does not make clear its alliances on its website, although they are mentioned in some of the press releases issued by the party. The seat sharing formula which will be decided between the BJP and its allies and its publication on the website has not been mentioned.

The BJP has connected its website to YouTube videos on topics like registering for voting, finding out your voting booth and other details. Another detail the party mentions repeatedly on its social media profiles and webpage is the ways in which people can contribute to the BJP through funds, volunteering, and sharing its messages on social media. It has repeatedly focused on reaching its “Mission 272+” which is the number of LokSabha seats required to form a government single-handedly.

The BJP has an active social stream on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.  It promptly posts updates once campaigning events conclude during the recent period. The party posts regular updates on all three platforms and keeps them updated. There are usually 2-3 updates about party events on all three social media platforms.

Indian National Congress (INC)

The Congress Party has been active on its website (www.inc.in), posting regular updates about is campaigning activities on its webpage. As of March 6, the Congress did not post names of its candidates, while rival parties like the BJP, NCP and AAP have declared some of their candidates.

The Congress party, like the BJP, has not provided its information about sources of its funding. An additional lacuna of its website is the lack of an online donation platform for its voters and well-wishers. While parties like the BJP and the AAP provide voters the chance to donate to the party online, the Congress website does not provide that gateway, making its donation procedure rather inconvenient for its voters. While the BJP and the AAP have a donation queries helpline, the Congress party has a rather old-fashioned style of accepting donations by cheque. The visitor has only to enter his/her name, phone number and cheque number, and click submit, which produces no further action by the website.

The Congress also falls short in terms of keeping website viewers updated about the activities of its campaigning leaders. Only Rahul Gandhi, the probable PM candidate for the Congress, is covered in its events, while other leaders and their events are not covered prominently. Moreover, the event schedule of Rahul Gandhi has also not been updated properly on the website since January 30, 2014. Videos of his interactions with various groups of people are uploaded sporadically on the website, but the schedule for that too is erratic.

Although the information about possible alliances is discussed and reported in the media, the party website has no mention about the final status. However, this is not unique to the Congress. The Congress has a website for its manifesto similar to the BJP, however, it also had not declared its manifesto yet.

On the social media front, the Congress has been updating its events once or twice a day with photographs and videos. The YouTube channel of the party has been especially active because it has constantly updated the videos of rallies, interactions and other events which are happening in the party. Its Twitter feed is also active, although one major drawback mentioned by newspapers covering social media pages of political parties is that Rahul Gandhi has no official Twitter page, while NarendraModi, his rival, has a following of 3.47 million users.

 AamAadmi Party (AAP)

Although not a national party according to the Election Commission of India, the AamAadmi party has one of the strongest online presences in the country (www.aamaadmiparty.org). With nearly Rs 10 crore in donations, a detailed audio-visual update on its website after major events, and presentations of data on its website, AAP is a very active internet user. The most striking attribute is the presentation of financial information and contributions received by the party and a detailed analysis of donation trends.

The AAP manifesto was yet to be released, although individual nominees for the 70 LokSabha seats declared by the party have declared their own aims and objectives for their constituency. An important part of the AAP’s strategy is its habit of updating clarifications about controversies published on news outlets. The AAP is usually quick to clarify its position and hence provides its official point of view to the people. Another feature absent on most other websites is a detailed list of all office bearers, including authorized spokespersons, the AAP disowns any media comment provided by anyone other than the authorized spokespersons. The website also contains information about various government scams with data to back them up. Since the AAP is a critic of all existing political parties, it has not forged any alliances and information about it is not on the website.

The AAP has run a volunteer campaign, has actively sought donations and memberships and has registered members online. Their membership data is also available online and is searchable by geographical locations. The website also runs blogs of external writers which are then syndicated under the website’s blogs section. The contact details of the party are up-to-date.

On social media, AAP is a strong entity, with more Twitter followers than all other parties, and with 1.6 million Facebook likes and 40800 YouTube subscribers, lesser only than the BJP. The social media use of AAP has been considered to be the most effective mobilisation of youth by many commentators studying political happenings. Although the long-term effectiveness of this strategy remains to be seen, the social media pages of AAP are currently buzzing with activity.

Nationalist Congress Party (NCP)

The Nationalist Congress Party’s website, www.ncp.org.in, is regularly updated. It contains information about the party’s activities, its aims and objectives, and the poll strategy. The party’s is the only one among the seven under study, whose focus is not on only one leader, namely founder and chief Sharad Pawar. The website hosts articles about several of its top leaders including Supriya Sule, Jitendra Avhad, Ajit Pawar, Bhaskar Jadhav, Praful Patel, and Chhagan Bhujbal. The website is prompt about updating information on events being attended by its leaders. It has promptly declared also the status of its alliance with the Congress, the finalization of the seat-sharing formula and the declaration of its first list of candidates. Moreover, unlike most parties, the party website contains a short biographical sketch of all its candidates declared so far.

The party provides detailed information about its organisational structure and contact details. However, some key features are missing from its website, the most important of which is financial information. It does not disclose ways and means to get party funds or list of donors. There is no information about donation to the party. The party provides good information about the voter registration process, finding out your voting booth and verifying the voter’s name on the voting list.

The social media presence of the NCP is steadily rising. It has incorporated all its social media feed on the website. However, their updates are not as frequent as the websites of BJP or AAP. The website still does not have its manifesto online. Nor does it have any kind of input feature for getting suggestions from the people about its manifesto.

Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI (M)]

The CPI(M) website,  www.cpim.org is not updated regularly. Although there is information or commentary by senior party leaders on current issues, there is little or no information about the party and its daily activities in the run-up to the elections. Unlike other parties however, the only critical piece of information the party website prominently covered was the meeting of eleven political parties to form an alliance on February 25, 2014.

The party website provided adequate information about its last electoral performances and the current state governments it is running. However, in terms of other information, the party website falls short. The website’s layout is unattractive. While other websites focus on images, graphs, and pictorial presentations, the CPI (M) website contains a lot of text and only some pictures and video functions. The video functions are also not updated daily, and are updated once in a few months.

The party website does not contain any information on utilities and even election-related matters. Unlike the BJP, INC and NCP, which provide information about election issues, the CPI(M) website does not talk about these issues at all. The site falls short as a fund-raising tool as well, as no easy method to pay money is available on the website. The website does not have a section to receive comments or suggestions. However, its Contact Us section is detailed and contains information of several leaders. The party has provided an audited statement of its accounts for 2013 and uploaded a copy on its website. No other party has done so among all the seven parties studied.

In terms of its social media, the CPI (M) is one of the three laggards along with the CPI and the BSP. The CPI(M) has no official Facebook page, has only 1574 Twitter followers and only ten YouTube subscribers. There is no link of the social media feed on the party apart from the RSS Feed (Really Simple Syndication). Its activity on these three social media platforms is also low.

Communist Party of India (CPI)

The CPI runs its website, www.communistparty.in, on a Blogger page. The website usually takes about 10 seconds to load even on a high-speed broadband connection.

The CPI website is one of the least updated websites among the seven national parties. It has nearly one update per week while its other sections are not useful for a regular visitor. A lot of information is about its history and its stance on various issues. There are no interactive features, and there is no syndication of social media content on the website. The contacts section of the website is exhaustive, and provides contacts of all important national leaders. The website performs badly on all interactive features, and only contains a large amount of text without interesting and engaging elements. It does not have any social media Facebook, Twitter or YouTube profile. It is the only political party under study to not have any social media profile. A lot of its pages do not open properly even on high-speed internet connections.

Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP)

The BSP has a website (www.bspindia.org) which is aesthetically unattractive. Like websites of the CPI (M) and the CPI, it is also not updated. The only updated section of news contains rhetoric against the BSP’s chief rival in Uttar Pradesh, the Samajwadi Party.

The party does not have any information about its alliances with other political parties, and has very little information about its leaders. Although it contains a video feed, it has not been updated even once since the websites are being monitored since January. The photo gallery also does not provide links to authentic material and is often unavailable. The audio-visual section contains third-party videos of non-authentic YouTube pages belonging to unknown individuals. Only a couple of rallies and events where the BSP chief Mayawati spoke have been covered on the website through text. There are no financial disclosures, nor an appeal to join, volunteer or donate. The quality of website design is extremely poor, and the font used for displaying Hindi is not provided on the website. The Hindi language feature on the website does not load properly on multiple browsers and computers. The contact sections contains a message form, which when filled out does not yield a reply even after a month of contact. The party contains some features like a blog, a feedback form and party achievements. All these sections, however, contain no updated information and have remained as they are through two months of observation. After the election has been declared on March 6, the BJP, NCP, INC and AAP have appealed to voters to turn out in large numbers, while nothing has been updated on the BSP website.

On social media platforms, the BSP has 4000 followers on Facebook, 364 Twitter followers and 10 subscribers on YouTube. All these social media pages are not active, and there is no mention of them on the party website.