BJP sets up media war room in J&K

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) set up a high-tech “media war room” here on Sunday, in order to monitor  election campaigns of candidates contesting the upcoming Assembly elections and fortify its campaign strategy in the state.

The room was inaugurated by Avinash Rai Khana, party MP in charge of  Jammu and Kashmir affairs  .

“It is fully equipped with high-end technology to cater to the election campaigns of party candidates, and is being managed by professionals," said a BJP spokesman in a statement.

Information technology professionals will work 24x7 in the room to promote the BJP agenda and track voting trends through platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and Android messaging applications.

The media war room will be headed by party spokesman Khalid Jehangir, assisted by other party leaders.

Jehangir will brief mediapersons on day-to-day happenings at 5 pm daily till the elections are over.

After the inauguration, Khana said the room would also act as a bridge between party leaders and the press. “We believe in transparency, and our party wants to ensure that all programmes announced by the party leadership reach the masses,” he said.

BJP spokesman Jehangir said the media is an important constituent of any democratic set-up, and the setting up of the media war room was the first step towards ensuring that BJP leaders remained accessible to all.

The media war room was devised by about 40 social media strategists who were a part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Lok Sabha poll campaign team earlier this year.