Kolkata:
Her speeches are rousing, and her rallies draw boisterous crowds. But a 2.0 version of Mamata Banerjee will soon be reaching out to voters on the Internet too.
Helping the Trinamool Congress leader to use social networking ahead of the West Bengal elections is part of the agenda for two interns who will work with Ms Banerjee's party for the West Bengal election.
The interns are not your usual bubble-gum-smacking, slightly dazed young recruits. Both graduated from Kolkata's top-rated IIM and work with high-profile companies. It's Ms Banerjee's brand of grass-root politics that convinced them to temporarily move from the boardroom to her party headquarters.
"We can't teach the party much, they are brilliant at marketing themselves, but we can surely bring our digital expertise to their platform," says Manisha Tandon, one of the two new interns. The other, Hariharan Sriram, adds, "It is easy to sit in the drawing room and theorise about political events. We think the internship would give us the view at the ground."
West Bengal will vote on six days, starting April 18. Ms Banerjee will take on the Left in West Bengal, which has seen its popularity dented in recent civic and local elections.
Ms Banerjee's talent and passion for rural championing can be exclusionary for voters in cities; critics feel she compromises development when she fights industrialization, often indiscriminately. That's where the interns will come in handy. "We are looking at the entire cyberspace, be it emails, social networking or the messages Mamata Banerjee wants to send out," says Derek O'Brien, Vice President, Trinamool Congress.
Helping the Trinamool Congress leader to use social networking ahead of the West Bengal elections is part of the agenda for two interns who will work with Ms Banerjee's party for the West Bengal election.
The interns are not your usual bubble-gum-smacking, slightly dazed young recruits. Both graduated from Kolkata's top-rated IIM and work with high-profile companies. It's Ms Banerjee's brand of grass-root politics that convinced them to temporarily move from the boardroom to her party headquarters.
"We can't teach the party much, they are brilliant at marketing themselves, but we can surely bring our digital expertise to their platform," says Manisha Tandon, one of the two new interns. The other, Hariharan Sriram, adds, "It is easy to sit in the drawing room and theorise about political events. We think the internship would give us the view at the ground."
West Bengal will vote on six days, starting April 18. Ms Banerjee will take on the Left in West Bengal, which has seen its popularity dented in recent civic and local elections.
Ms Banerjee's talent and passion for rural championing can be exclusionary for voters in cities; critics feel she compromises development when she fights industrialization, often indiscriminately. That's where the interns will come in handy. "We are looking at the entire cyberspace, be it emails, social networking or the messages Mamata Banerjee wants to send out," says Derek O'Brien, Vice President, Trinamool Congress.
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