Technology opened new avenues for campaigning during LS polls. With the dates for Delhi University Students Union election out, student bodies too are reaching out to young voters through social networking sites and SMSes
Technology opened new avenues for campaigning during LS polls.u00a0 With the dates for Delhi University Students Union election out, student bodies too are reaching out to young voters through social networking sites and SMSes
With the election fever back in Delhi University, budding netas are gearing up to follow the footprints of their seniors. During the Lok Sabha elections, political parties went hi-tech for reaching out to the young voters, now the aspiring youth politicians are ready to employ the same tools.
As the Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) election, scheduled foru00a0 September 4, draws near, youth wings of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress are earnestly utilising technology to woo young voters. Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) has already installed the first IT cell in DU polls, while the National Students Union of India (NSUI) and other parties are making efforts to fill up their votebank through posts on social networking sites.
Considering the ban on posters which is being strictly enforced by university authorities, both ABVP and NSUI feel technology is the best media for campaigns.
ABVP Delhi state secretary Ashutosh Srivastav, said, "We have installed first IT cell for the best use of technology. And soon we will come up with our agenda for the current academic year. Students are being encouraged to come up with their feedbacks and demands. We will attract voters with the help of recently launched DU networking website. Moreover, SMSes will be sent to students explaining the importance of voting."
"Parties are using modern campaign technology this year. And social networking is one of the best ways, as these days almost everyone is active on such sites. Messages about DUSU will be posted on the sites.u00a0 And parties will obviously make students familiar with their achievements separately," added Srivastava.u00a0
Both the two dominant student bodies are also in the process of forming their college units to help them reach to maximum number of students.
NSUI national general secretary, Anand Pandey, said, "We will speed up our activity once the nominations are being filed. With over 70 colleges in DU, visiting each and every college is an expensive affair. The Lyngdoh committee strictly set the expenditure limit at Rs 5,000 per candidate. So, technology will help us. Most of the students are now tech-savvy. We will also use social networking websites and SMSes to lure young voters."
Presently, NSUI office-bearers have been asked to look after some colleges and help form the college units.
They have been given responsibility to organise freshers' party and several other programmes in different colleges to apprise students about NSUI's ideology.
FAST FACTSThe DUSU election will be held on September 4 between 8.30 am and 12.30 pm for day classes, and 3 to 7 pm for evening classes. The nomination papers would be received up to 3 pm on August 25 and the deadline for the withdrawal of nominations is 12 noon on August 27.
Gurmeet Singh and J M Khurana of the Department of Chemistry have been appointed as the chief election officer and the chief returning officer respectively. The counting will be done on the following day but the time and venue for it will be announced later.
