India272+ Volunteer Platform Launched

Bangalore, Aug 9: The BJP's Committee Chairman

highlighted the central role of Social Media within our democratic process with these words.

"Social Media to me is the most powerful channel for accomplishing this. I was recently in Pune to meet with the students of Fergusson College. I was pleasantly surprised over the seriousness with which Youth responded to my request through Social Media for ideas and suggestions for that speech."

"I am happy to note that the BJP as an organisation is looking to creatively harness Social Media to crowd-source ideas on how we can change and transform India for the better."

Modi was of course referring to the BJP as part of its campaign preparations for the upcoming Assembly elections and the next Lok Sabha elections announcing the formation of several committees including one under Piyush Goyal, its National Treasurer and Rajya Sabha MP, specifically focused on the use of Technology for Campaign Communications. The EICC as it has been called recently had its launch event in Delhi that was keenly followed by folks in Social Media. Speaking on the significance of the EICC to the Rediff, here is what Piyush Goyal had to say:

"There are at least seven crore young voters who are not registered. Our Mission 272 plus aims to get them to register as voters, educate them about what the BJP stands for and persuade them to cast their vote on that crucial day."

Giving details about Mission 272 plus, Goyal said: "The BJP plans to tap into growing anger among the youth with regards to corruption and poor governance. The young are yearning and aspiring for a new India and our effort is to become a platform for their voice."

The Mission for 272+ for the BJP under the Campaign stewardship of Narendra Modi now has a new home on the newly launched website - http://www.india272.com.

One of the goals that Piyush Goyal spoke about in his remarks to the Rediff was on mobilizing Volunteers.

"To begin with, the BJP has set itself a target of enlisting 10,000 volunteers and another one lakh online volunteers by the end of August. This figure is expected to jump as the elections draw closer and the BJP campaign picks pace. Special training sessions are to be conducted to teach the volunteers about the contents of their message and the use of technology in reaching out to potential voters."

"While the volunteers will naturally be the backbone of this massive outreach programme, it will be driven essentially by technology. Goyal explained that their party has access to technology that will enable them to target these voters. For instance, he said, his team has software, which enables them to access details of each voter and his family members."

A special feature of the new website http://www.india272.com is it sub-section dedicated to Volunteers - http://volunteer.india272.com.

In an inaugural multi-part series of blogposts posted on the India272+ website Rajesh Jain, Serial Entrepreneur, explains the importance of the Mission to Volunteers including on the centrality of Booth Management and the criticality of Voter Education.

Narendra Modi's upcoming speech in Hyderabad on Sunday, August 11, 2013, saw a lot of coverage on the India272+ as it sought to build up excitement with coverage of little known aspects of the preparations in Hyderabad from Muslim Women signing up to the story of a 85-year-old senior citizen excited to attend.

Coverage of Narendra Modi's rally in the top Telugu Newspaper Eenaadu also found space on the new website demonstrating the power of Technology and Crowd-sourcing in the Campaign breaking through boundaries of language and geography while bypassing the mainstream media completely.

It will be interesting to see how the Mission for the BJP to achieve a 272+ seat majority in the next Lok Sabha will shape up through the use of this Platform in weeks and months to come. In closing it would however be pertinent to note Narendra Modi's thoughts on the use of Technology:

"Elections and campaigns will come and go, however, our mission to make our democracy, more deliberative, and consequently purposeful should remain uncompromised. It should be responsive to our Youth, who today constitute a significant part of the population."