Cong to train cadres

Six representatives led by UPCC general secretary Harish Bajpai attended the workshop from the state.

The seven districts are Kanpur,Allahabad,Varanasi,Agra,Lucknow,Meerut and Ghaziabad.

“These districts were selected after experts found that social network users were maximum here. Experts also found social media campaign of (Gujarat Chief Minister) Narendra Modi being managed from three districts in Gujarat and two districts (Allahabad and Varanasi) of Uttar Pradesh. Large number of followers on his pages are from these two districts,” said Amarnath Agarwal,who was one of the six representatives from UP at the workshop.

He said: We were told there are 4.85 lakh followers of Modi on different networking sites,who only follow Modi and make posts only on his pages. This cannot be genuine because users would have other posts and friends on their lists as well”.

In UP,Congress plans to take each of these seven districts one by one in next one and a half month.

Workers would be first trained to operate Facebook and Twitter accounts. They will also be trained on how to use these sites,besides social media platform “Khidki” created for Congressmen,from their mobile phones.

While trainers will be called from Delhi for district-level workshops,those trained at the district-level will educate workers at the Assembly,block and wards levels and assist them in becoming active on the social media. The state has also been asked to make its state website more interactive and make district-wise pages “The training is likely to be kicked off from Kanpur on September 8,” said Agarwal.