MP Cong rolls back social media diktat

Most Congress ticket seekers in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh have heaved a sigh of relief as the party has withdrawn the circular that asked applicants to ensure at least 15,000 likes and 50,000 followers on their Facebook and Twitter accounts each.

Aspirants for BJP ticket, however, are still jittery as party president Amit Shah had said in May that impressive following on social media will be one of the criteria in candidate selection. Of the 165 BJP MLAs in the state, 47 don’t have a Facebook page.

Among the rest, most of them don’t operate their account beyond posting greetings on birthdays or on auspicious days. Nearly 100 ruling party MLAs are without a Twitter account.

Soon after the Congress circular of September 2 asking candidates to increase followers in the social network, ticket aspirants including existing MLAs protested against the idea. They took up the matter with senior party leaders including PCC chief Kamal Nath. As protest mounted, the party agreed to withdraw the order.

The withdrawal of order came as a disappointment to a score of information technology agencies who had started approaching ticket aspirants with an offer to increase followers on their social media platforms.

BJP leadership has also told its MLAs and other candidates to be more active on Facebook and Twitter. Shah has directed them to use the media for propagating achievements of the Modi as well as the Shivraj Singh governments. They are also expected to attack the Congress on Facebook and Twitter.

However, barring BJP national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya and Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, none of the state BJP leaders have more than one lakh followers on Twitter. Nine MLAs have followers between 10,000 and 1 lakh. As many as 54 lawmakers have less than 10,000 followers.

Only 14 MLAs have more than 50,000 likes and 62 have between 50,000 and 1000 on Facebook.