Delhi election result: Meet the man behind AAP's witty and quirky social media game

Image: Facebook/@HiteshPardeshi

Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) swept the Delhi elections, winning 62 out of 70 seats – a rare feat for an incumbent government.

The run-up to the elections saw a vociferous campaign, with the AAP riding on the laurels of their developmental promises in the health and education sectors, and the BJP propelling national issues such as the Citizenship Amendment Act, abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir and abolition of triple talaq.

Days ahead of the elections say two parallel poll campaigns emerging, one on the ground, and the other on social media. While the BJP is known for a solid social media game, AAP was not further behind, upping their ante with quirky comebacks and punchy tag lines.

In an exclusive interview with Moneycontrol, Hitesh Pardeshi, the 29-year-old managing the social media campaign for AAP since October 2019, shares an interesting insight on the party's online campaign, how its social media cell operates and how it deals with fake news.

Excerpts:

1. You have been working extensively on upping the social media game for AAP in the run-up to the Delhi elections. What does your role entail?

My role was to supervise the content that is going out, on whichever platform – Instagram, Twitter or Facebook. We used to brainstorm on things.

The content for different platforms is different, based on how the platform works. For instance, Twitter has the witty stuff because that works on Twitter, it makes news. However, that might not be the case with Facebook. If you put the same thing on Facebook, it would not work. So my job is to decide what content goes on which platform, and how to utilise it better.

Hum jeet gaye!!! pic.twitter.com/oAltKiauIm

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— AAP (@AamAadmiParty) February 11, 2020

Previously, I was heading the social media team for AIB, and later the video team for FilterCopy. So, I have studied various social media platforms and how they work. Based on this experience, I know how a social media platform can be utilised. For instance, if you want to make news vis-a-vis politics, you can only do it on Twitter. Besides, we have guidance from people, who have been working with AAP's social media team from before.

2. AAP's campaign saw punchy taglines and the use of words such as 'KejriWALL, 'Kejriwal-vs-who?' and 'Lage Raho Kejriwal'. Who came up with these and what was the idea? 

All these captions are not a one-person job. We have a team here, who sits and ideates. The team comprises volunteers from across the country who want to help a lending hand during elections.

BJP to announce CM candidate ? https://t.co/70Kte0vYZN pic.twitter.com/4vJH0NvWzm

— AAP (@AamAadmiParty) February 5, 2020

'KejriWALL' was actually coined by a Pune-based volunteer called Abhijit. The 'Lage Raho Kejriwal' was a bigger strategy that came from the top brass.

So multiple teams have contributed to these punchy tag lines for the campaign.

3. How does the social media team from AAP operate? Does it also have a "control room" and "cyber warriors" like its rivals?

No. I know such things exist. But we are just a team of simple people who come to office every day and do their work.

If we know that the agenda for today is education, then we'll come up with ideas to put out content on education in different formats. Nobody would want to hear a speech on education, or even a direct message. People want entertainment with it. And, that's what we do.

4. AAP had roped in election strategist Prashant Kishor's I-PAC for devising a smart poll campaign months ahead of elections. Did Kishor and his team give you any inputs on the social media campaign?

Not really. Social media and everything digital was mostly done by the volunteers. I-PAC's team helped AAP with the on-ground campaigns, surveys and such. They did help us a bit, but majority of the work was done by the volunteers only.

These volunteers have come from across the country. It's crazy – people have come from Pune, Rajasthan, Bihar – from all over the country.

Delhiites to @ArvindKejriwal #HugDay pic.twitter.com/WonilRRdmZ

— AAP (@AamAadmiParty) February 12, 2020

There's one person who has come from Punjab to Delhi on foot. He believes in Aam Aadmi Party a lot, and every election he comes to Delhi on foot. He is very spiritual about it. He believes it's a good sign for AAP.

The passion and the dedication of the volunteers keeps us super high. People are ready to work nights and happily so.

5. What, do you think, is the importance of social media campaigns ahead of elections? Do they have the ability to swing the voters?

I believe, and this is something that I witnessed during this election also, most votes come because of on-ground activities by the leaders. But there are a lot of undecided voters, who are on the fence, who do not know which party to vote for.

For these fence-sitters, social media is a gateway platform. It is used to ensure that they know about the work done by the party, and its achievements. For fence-sitters, social media works wonders.

If someone has already made up their mind, it is very difficult to change their opinion through social media, especially in a short span of time.

Also, social media helps a lot in the overall campaign. For instance, if the agenda on ground is to talk about Mohalla clinics, we tell the people, through social media, about the clinics, how many of them are operating in the city, the facilities they have, that they are free, etc. So, social media completes the campaign.

6. Social media has its limitations vis-a-vis the penetration of smart phones, internet and social media apps in the remotest corners of the country. 

As per latest data, almost every other person, even in villages has a smart phone. But, there is a possibility, that people living in Tier-II and Tier-III cities, or in villages might not have Twitter, Instagram on their smartphones.

So, we started targeting them on other apps also, such as Hello, TikTok, ShareChat and Likee. We have accounts on all platforms now.

In fact, as per our data, Hello is the most downloaded app in India. The number of Indian users are the largest on this app.

So we dug out a lot of such data, and accordingly we devised our strategy.

7. Social media is extremely vulnerable to fake news. How do you ensure that fake news does not creep into your posts, and how do you counter it?

Whatever content we post, goes out only after two-three rounds of approval. First, the writers' and graphic designers' teams check the post, then it comes to me, and then it goes to the research team, which is exclusively dedicated for fact-checking.

So, there are three layers of approval for the content we push out.

The Muffler King pic.twitter.com/P2ib9QCMN9

— AAP (@AamAadmiParty) February 12, 2020

Besides, whenever we come across any false narratives or half truths being pushed out against the party, we counter it immediately with the correct and complete information.

We don't just say that it's fake. We do our research, and put out the facts. Then, we push out a couple of posts around the facts. Our funda is saying, 'Hey, this is the right news', instead of saying, 'Hey, this is wrong!'.