Propaganda war begins on social media

Lalit Mohan

Tribune News Service

Dharamsala, September 7

With the Assembly elections drawing near, politicians in Dharamsala have taken to social media to propagate their viewpoint.

Both the sitting Congress MLA and Minister for Urban Development Sudhir Sharma and former minister and senior BJP leader Kishan Kapoor have created Facebook pages and are engaged in propaganda war.

Sources available here said that both leaders have engaged professional agencies to make short films about them and put them on their Facebook pages. Each and every visit of the leaders to villages and their public addressed are being put on Facebook pages.

Sudhir Sharma has recently uploaded his visit to Saukani da kot village in his constituency.

In the Facebook post, Sudhir Sharma has said it is for the first time that the state government had paid the tax that was to be paid by the villagers.

He was probably referring to the decision of the state government to pay over Rs 1.25 crore for conversion of forest land where mining has been allowed by the Supreme Court in the hills near Dharamsala.

Though the state government has taken the decision the tax was yet to be paid by the government. The posts show Sudhir Sharma laden with garlands by the people of the village.

Kishan Kapoor, in his recent post, has maintained that Dharamsala was a world-famous destination even before Sudhir Sharma came and won the elections from here.

He has listed HPCA cricket stadium and synthetic track as the achievements of the previous BJP government.

To counter the propaganda of Sudhir, Kishan Kapoor has said Dharamsala emerged a sports city and international destination due to development works carried out by the previous BJP government.

The Facebook page of Sudhir Sharma has over 13,000 followers. Kishan Kapoor who has recently taken to social media also has over 4,000 followers. The sources here said that social campaign of Kishan Kapoor was being handled by his son who has recently joined him after doing engineering degree.

While Kishan Kapoor has also organized briefing for traditional media, Sudhir Sharma has totally focused on social media for his poll campaign and stayed away from traditional media.

The social media campaign of both leaders is also proving a source of irritation for their political rivals. In BJP many young leaders are trying to challenge Kishan Kapoor for party ticket.

They are maintaining that social media campaign should not be launched by former minister before party declares him an official candidate.

In Congress many leaders, who are annoyed with Sudhir Sharma, are working out other political calculations. Some are trying to put up independent candidates to cut into vote bank of Sudhir Sharma while others are trying to stir caste combinations.