The Trinamool Congress has its eyes set on the 2024 general elections after retaining West Bengal in the fiercely fought assembly polls this year. The party is looking to increase its footprints in other parts of the country starting with the north-eastern states. But the TMC wants its digital footprints everywhere. And that is why on Thursday, the party began its journey on the Koo social media platform.
Welcoming West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s party on the site, Aprameya Radhakrishna, CEO and co-founder of Koo, said, “Koo extends a warm welcome to CM Mamata Banerjee’s party — All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) — to Koo. We believe that this will enable the people of Bengal to listen to the TMC’s developments and plans. In a short time, Koo has crossed 10 million downloads and we look forward to more people joining the platform.”
Koo, seen as India’s alternative to US-headquartered microblogging site Twitter, has seen a surge in popularity in recent months. This comes against the backdrop of repeated disputes between the Indian government and Twitter over the content on the platform. For instance, the Centre took issue with the site in February after it failed to take down accounts and posts accused of spreading misinformation about the ongoing farmers’ protest. Following this, several ministers promoted Koo and its downloads shot up. The yellow-coloured Twitter lookalike is Bengaluru-based and was founded by Aprameya Radhakrishna and Mayank Bidawatka in November 2019. It launched in Kannada and also supports English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi and Assamese.
The TMC has joined Koo as part of its efforts since the 2019 parliamentary polls to gain more and more traction online, an area where rival Bharatiya Janata Party has been dominant.
Trinamool leaders have been active on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. All ministers, MPs and MLAs of the party, as well as local units too, have accounts on these platforms.
In the last two years, the TMC has streamed Mamata Banerjee’s July 21 Martyrs’ Day speeches online. It did the same with her August 28 speech on Trinamool Students’ Foundation Day. It was a top trend on social media.
Political analyst Sambit Pal said, “Today everyone has a mobile device. A majority of young Indians have social media accounts. It is natural that every political party would like to tap this vote bank. There is no choice before politicians to leave any social media space. I think the TMC, though it started late, is fast catching up with this trend in the digital era.”
TMC sources said that unlike parties such as the BJP or Congress, Trinamool does not have a spat with any social media platform and is now looking to occupy more virtual space. This is the focus of party all-India general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, who is the CM’s nephew and is spearheading the TMC’s nationwide expansion efforts, they added. Mamata Banerjee too has been active on social media since around the time of the Centre’s controversial demonetisation move in 2016 and was one of the first to on it with a tweet.
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