Patiala: Contenders making presence felt online

Ravneet Singh

Patiala, February 8

The online presence and activity of various candidates contesting the Punjab Assembly elections in the district have increased manifold. Leaders, who otherwise were largely inactive on the social media, are also regularly posting videos and photographs of their meetings and press conferences in their respective constituencies.

Among those contesting the Patiala city seat, former Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh has remained active and engaging on his Facebook page for a long now. The latest content on his page includes a video campaign to debunk claims of the rival parties on governance and development during his tenure as the CM, a conference held with leaders of the NDA and meetings with workers. His Facebook page, which was created in 2011, has 14.65 lakh followers.

Congress candidate Vishnu Sharma created his Facebook page in 2016. Though his page does not have many posts during a period from the year 2018 to 2020, it saw regular activity in the second half of 2021. He posted six posts in a single day on February 8, most of which include photographs with Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi and his meetings with people in the constituency. He joined Twitter on January 22.

Jaspal Singh Bittu Chatha, Patiala (Rural) candidate of the SAD, also has Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts. His Facebook page was created in November last year and he has 4,270 followers. It features a post, a photograph or two, a video of his campaign and his visits to local shrines. His Twitter account, also created in November 2021, has six followers.

As of date, Patiala (Rural) candidate of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Dr Balbir Singh’s Facebook page has over 27,000 followers since the practising doctor and politician was providing medical treatment to farmers during the protest on the Delhi borders. One of the latest posts includes a meme of a famous video game, Super Mario, featuring AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal and the party’s Punjab CM face Bhagwant Mann. He regularly re-tweets posts of Kejriwal and Mann.

Congress candidate from Nabha Sadhu Singh Dharamsot and AAP Shutrana candidate Kulwant Singh do not have Twitter or Instagram accounts. Their Facebook accounts now feature regular updates and they have nearly 5,000 friends each.