The Bharatiya Janata Party’s Delhi unit has formed hundreds of WhatsApp groups with party chief Amit Shah on them in an effort to fight fake news and provide users “direct information” ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, PTI reported on Saturday. The party has created over 1,800 such groups so far, and each of them will have Shah and Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari as members.
“The move is aimed to provide direct information and stem fake news,” Neelkant Bakshi, who handles the social media unit of the Delhi BJP, told PTI. Other senior office-bearers and leaders of the party are also part of these groups, reported The Hindu. An unidentified official from the party’s Delhi unit told the newspaper that the groups are also open to “like-minded members of the general public” nominated by senior party leaders.
Bakshi said that around 1,770 of the 1,800 groups, with 256 members each, had been created until Saturday evening.
“Our objective is to ensure that the party’s message and the achievements of the government reach each end user directly,” Bakshi told The Hindu. “It is also to ensure that any kind of propaganda, especially in the form of fake news against the party, is identified and checked.”
Responding on Twitter, the All India Mahila Congress asked whether this move will solve the problem – “or will the ‘honour of being in the same group as Amit Shah ji’ goad trolls to greater heights?”
The move comes after a meeting on June 21 where Shah had advised party workers and leaders to use social media judiciously and to avoid posting and disseminating fake news as it hurt the BJP’s credibility.
Bakshi said the party has also planned social media meetings at various district and ‘mandal’ levels to spread messages of the government’s achievements at the Centre.
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