UP Elections: Politicians spread their net to connect to the voters

The Uttar Pradesh elections are round the corner which calls for promotions, rallies and public gatherings. However, with the third wave of Covid on its rise, it has surely made these promotional public activities a strict no no. In the run up to the UP assembly elections, the local representatives of political parties are organising online meetings with the residents with the help of the AOAs and RWAs of the highrise group housing societies in Noida and Greater Noida.  

As offices and educational institutions have shifted to working/studying from home, the local representatives of political parties in Noida and Greater Noida have also taken a technical shift to online promotions this time.

On January 18, Pankaj Singh, the MLA from Noida, organised a zoom meeting with the residents of Supertech Capetown, Sector 74, Noida. About 200 residents were present in the meeting.

Arun Sharma, AOA Capetown says, "We discussed our problems such as registry of flats, inadequate water and electricity connection in the society, parking and handover of the society from the builder with Pankaj Singh. He has assured speedy solutions after the elections on all the pending issues."

We also talked to a few other AoAs and RWAs to understand what view they hold of these virtual meetings.

Puneet, AOA president of Aditya Celebrity homes, Noida sector 76 says, "This year, the elections are going to be very interesting and virtual medium will  give a different flavour to the overall process. The advantage of online medium in the Corona time is that the candidates as well as the audience, they both are being saved from the physical hazels. Because of the increasing cases of Covid, the residents are also scared and they do not want to attend rallies. These virtual rallies are good alternatives in these times."

He adds, "In this way, within a day, the leaders can cover eight to ten societies easily which is not possible physically. I think the reach has increased. Now,  it depends on the representatives how much they understand online mediums like twitter, Zoom meeting, webex meeting and among others."

Devender Kumar, General Secretary of Express Zenith society says, "On January 19, we had a virtual rally with our MLA. In online rallies, you can connect to a relatively large number of people at a single time. In the meeting with MLA, the residents of three societies were present at a single time around 8 pm, and there is no time boundation as well."

Rakhi Sinha, Social media adviser of Arun Vihar RWA says, "As a socialmedia advisor, I would say it is a mode of 'interactive' mass communication. It has massive reach now, even to the grassroot level due to the affordable & readily available Internet & smartphones. Socialising is human instinct. Online platforms make socialising convenient and quite string free with anyone, at any time, and from anywhere. Online platform is incredibly powerful in impacting audience reactions that can catalyse changes, including the political ones."