3 days Ago By Swati Shinde Gole
Pune: A visit to the party offices of any contesting candidates these days is nothing short of a battleground. Strategists are engaged in crafting slogans, designing manifestos, planning strategies to reach out to voters, constantly sending content for social media, telecalling voters, and much more. A quintessential social media team for almost all candidates consists of no fewer than 100 individuals, fixated on computer screens, meticulously crafting and orchestrating campaigns for candidates.
In recent times, social media has emerged as the focal point, necessitating an increased emphasis on devising strategies to engage with voters across contemporary platforms. Poll strategists of each party are continuously providing feedback from the battleground to the war room team, based on which online campaigns are prepared. Shashank Bhise, a consultant with Sunrise Analytics, said, "We are currently working with some NCP (SCP) candidates to collect data, conduct surveys, and give recommendations to the leadership regarding sentiment of the voters.
We are working 24x7, as the majority of campaign runs on social media, so there are no breaks." At the party office in Kharadi established by NCP (SCP) candidate Bapu Pathare for Wadgaon Sheri constituency, the team is engaged in telesurveys with the electorate, inputting data into software, scrutinising social media content, and trying to discern public sentiment to formulate campaign strategies. Pathare said, "We are using surveys and polls to capture ground intelligence.
This data is further sliced and diced to study via Power BI dashboards, and it helps in devising a strong manifesto that caters to our voters and fulfils their immediate as well as long-term requirements. Modern tools like this are now helping me understand my constituency even better." While maintaining contact with voters that every candidate aims to target, strategists enable candidates to track their campaigns and coordinate their election-related activities in real time.
Congress candidate for the Kasba constituency, Ravindra Dhangekar, testified, "I am a person who works on the ground. Personal connection is what matters a lot; however, in this new age of politics, having a team of strategists work behind the scenes also works to a great extent. Hence, every candidate and party relies on campaign strategies coined inside war rooms.
" Political consultant for six candidates in Western Maharashtra, Seema Rao, said, "Every small live information about political parties and candidates is captured, including the live election insights of the voters, turning down the negative responses to positive responses on social media, proctoring the media audience, and feeding and implementing the appropriate strategies that help to increase the possibility of winning the elections.".
