SMS canvassing comes to Karnataka

Bangalore, April 22 : This election season, mobile phone users in Karnataka can expect to be spammed with SMSes to not merely vote for a particular political party but also to consider issues such as hanging of Parliament attacker Afzal Guru or merits of farm loan waiver. The BJP and the Congress plan to harness the all-pervasive mobile phone, apart from call centres and the Internet to communicate simple ‘Vote for’ messages and to convey content that is core to the election agendas of these parties.

“We are reviewing our SMS campaign from the content point of view. We want to provide election related content like soaring prices under Manmohan Singh and Chidambaram and the pardoning of Afzal Guru,” BJP general secretary H N Ananth Kumar said at the launch of the party’s Karnataka website this week.

Karnataka specific issues like the betrayal of the BJP by the JDS and the ‘hijacking’ of the 2004 election mandate by former prime minister H D Deve Gowda’s party will be part of the content of the SMS campaign, he added. The BJP will also use short text messaging services to remind voters of the polling date and timings, slogans of the party and names of its candidates.

“We want to drive a greater number of educated voters to the polling booths this time by conveying the need to vote for a stable government,” said former BJP chief minister B S Yeddyurappa.

The Congress announced its SMS campaign to communicate the party’s ideology to the younger generation of urban voters, ahead of last month’s Karnataka tour by AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi. With the party being seen as belonging to an older generation, a need was felt to communicate to the younger generation, using technologies that they use, said Karnataka state youth Congress president, Krishna Byregowda.

A Congress call centre at Bangalore that answers queries regarding the party and its leaders and works 9 am to 7 pm has been in operation for nearly a month now. “This idea was introduced for the first time in the country and the national unit wants to introduce this all over the country,” Byregowda added.

According to Ananth Kumar the electronic mode of campaigning will result in an environment friendly, litter-free, clean campaign.

The Election Commission has clarified that short text messaging service campaigns will be considered as election expenditure and audited to the accounts of the candidates fielded by a political party by equal portioning. The SMS services will also have to be utilised during the stipulated campaign hours of 7 am to 10 pm, Chief Electoral Officer for Karnataka M N Vidyashankar said.

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