Online campaigning gets popular for Andhra municipal polls

Amaravati, March 2 : In the run up to the urban local bodies elections, several candidates from political parties in Andhra Pradesh are making use of technology and social media to reach out to voters as part of their canvassing.

Amid Covid, model code of conduct and restrictions implemented by the State Election Commission (SEC), candidates have embraced the advantages offered by technology to campaign.

According to the SEC orders, only five persons are allowed to do door to door campaign while public address systems are also barred."Your vote in the municipal election will enable you to waive your old tax and pay only half the tax," said Telugu Desam Party (TDP) leader Bonda Umamaheshwara Rao using a nicely designed slide he made to reach out to voters through social media.

Using these kinds of publicity material, supporters of the leaders are also chipping in to help them on social media by forwarding these messages on WhatsApp messenger to potential voters.Incidentally, this mode of campaign has reduced the costs for candidates, including offering a direct channel to communicate with the voters.

Similarly, some voters are also raising their problems with the leaders directly through this online route.A few candidates have also hired the services of experts to manage their poll campaign operations.