Kerala Assembly Elections | UDF takes WhatsApp route for public connect
The Hindu
Interactive platform to elicit suggestions
Widely perceived to have ceded ground to its opponents on the social media till recently, the Congress-led United Democratic Front seems to have come with a winner, albeit belatedly for the forthcoming Assembly election, going by the response to its WhatsApp-based interactive platform to reach out to the electorate and elicit suggestions from them. A brainchild of the All India Professionals' Congress (AIPC) and backed by Leader of the Opposition Ramesh Chennithala and Shashi Tharoor, MP, the platform evoked such a great response within a short span of time since its launch on Thursday so much so that its server in Karnataka was in danger of crashing. “It was designed and customised in a month by a software company that has already been using its basic version for business development. We went for it as there was no simpler way to reach out to the public. Plans are now afoot to use it beyond the State Assembly elections with an impressed All India Congress Committee exploring the scope for adapting it nationally,” said Anand Mohanraj, Pathanamthitta district president of the AIPC, who has been tirelessly working on the platform for the last two months.A group of 13 men from Dakshin Datta Para village in Nadia district, West Bengal, busy transplanting paddy has been catching the eye of many in Mayildathurai district in recent days. A video clip of the Bengali migrant agricultural workers Singing Hindi and Bengali songs while planting paddy at Nallathukudi village here has gone viral.
Leaders and legislators hailing from Ballari, which is part of the Kalyana Karnataka region, seem to be a source of much political upheaval in Karnataka, going by recent history. This has been the case since the time illegal mining hit national and international headlines in the 2000s and the place gained reputation as “Republic of Ballari”.
The former BJP MLA of Udupi K. Raghupathi Bhat claimed on Saturday that he contesting the Legislative Council elections from South West Graduates’ Constituency as rebel candidate made the saffron party field its party leader C. T. Ravi in the biennial elections to the Legislative Council from the Legislative Assembly.