BJP turns tech savvy, to communicate via SMSs
New Delhi (PTI): On the heels of corporates and telemarketers taking advantage of mobile messaging to communicate with consumers, even political parties are now waking up to this opportunity to keep in touch with their party members.
Taking the plunge is the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which plans to become the most automated party.
It has selected ValueFirst, a provider of mobile data services to develop an extensive SMS-based communications network for registered members of the party across their district and state offices in the country.
The service would be launched this week.
It is also coming up with a party membership ID number to double up as members' unified communication number, ValueFirst Co-founder and Country Head (India) Vijay Shukla said.
As per the service, all party workers can be reached at a single go. Moreover, it would have a feedback option. The common man can also use this service to post their grievances, Shukla added.
Enterprise mobile messaging, though at a nascent stage in India, has shown exponential growth in this short span.
Features such as cost effectiveness, ease of use, wide reach, easy implementation and real-time messaging capabilities have driven enterprises to adopt mobile messaging services to improve their internal and external communication systems, he added.
With verticals like banking and finance already using such services, latest to adopt the technology is the it cell of BJP.
If implemented effectively, information technology can help improve governance for political parties besides extending the appeal of their election campaigns.
Through mobile communications it also plans to change the perceived image of being a North Indian party and reach out to masses in their own languages (localising content).
"Today the reach of mobile phone is huge. The country has almost 260 million mobile users. It can be used to communicate with the party workers faster and more effectively," Shukla said.
The political parties had earlier experimented by sending SMSs to voters to garner votes. Earlier, the messages were sent from individual numbers to their friends. After the implementation of the system, the messages would be sent from a single number, which would reach all party workers at the same time.
However, Shukla clarified that BJP would not use the service for garnering votes.
