Left with little time to campaign for the civic elections, citizen candidates are relying heavily on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter to reach out to voters. This will also save them money.
Neelima Thakur, a Mumbai 227 candidate from ward number 97, said the delay in scrutiny of applications due to a legal issue has reduced time for campaigning for Independents.
“The election commission was to scrutinise applications on February 1. But following a legal issue, it was postponed. Therefore, I am using Facebook to connect,” said Thakur, who has created a web page, Neelima for better Mumbai.
Another citizen candidate, Bhaskar Prabhu, who has filed his nomination from ward number 195, expressed concerns over delay in procuring symbols which was leading to delay in campaigning.
“We have not yet got our symbol, so I have not been able to publish campaign material. That is why I am depending on social network besides door-to-door meets,” said Prabhu, adding that he has been sharing his Facebook, Twitter and email ID with voters.
But, political observers feel that one-on-one interaction with voters is the best way of campaigning.
“Voters will find it difficult to connect through these social networking sites,” an observer said.
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