Hotmail's Bhatia will be Mamata's 'messenger'

Even as the CPM-led Left Front was busy giving finishing touches to the candidates’ list on Sunday, Banerjee was closeted with Bhatia in the Trinamool war room in the last 48 hours to prepare a blueprint of a  homegrown version of a mobile magic to take on the Left.

Mamata’s aim is to take Bhatia’s assistance to enable her call for change chime a little louder, leveraging the mass penetration levels of the mobile phone. And Bhatia couldn’t just resist it, he is not jumping on the TMC bandwagon though, according to sources in the TMC.

What will be Bhatia’s task vis-a-vis his tete-a-tete with the union railway minister? This poster boy of email will be coming out with unique ideas to fight the polls through powerful and catchy SMS while scintilating ring tones will endeavour to lure the Gen Y.
In fact, the tie-up with Bhatia comes close on the heels of the party securing the services of two outgoing IIM Calcutta students for its Y-connect strategy network. Even though details of the Trinamool’s cyber and mobile strategy are under wraps as no party leader is willing to talk about it, Bhatia himself didn’t mince words.

“Given the huge population in India, one of the best ways for the political parties to stay connected with the constituencies and the people is through mobile phone. The mobile technology will help Trinamool to spread its message in the grassroot level in the rural Bengal and forge a strong bond with the electorate,” Bhatia observed.
Apparently, there will be some dedicated numbers where people across the state could directly call and air their thoughts, grievances or concerns to the TMC leadership; they may send SMS too. Some interesting caller tunes are likely to be unveiled in the coming weeks that will ring out the party gospel without any hassle.
According to Bhatia, he was not here to serve as tech consultant to the Mamata Banerjee-led outfit; instead, he was keen to share a “bunch of ideas” with the senior leadership to help the party put in place the change in the form of a concept first, and then in reality.

Mamata has even invited him to come up with a business plan in the next six months on ways to fine-tune the communication channels down the grassroot level throughout the state.