MPs,MLAs get active on FB,Twitter

When it comes to Members of Parliament (MPs),those in the Rajya Sabha are found to be more active on FB and Twitter as compared to their counterparts from the Lok Sabha.

Emulating BJP’s election campaign committee chief Narendra Modi,BJP Rajya Sabha MP Prakash Javadekar leads in usage of social media. Javadekar is active on Twitter with 8,262 followers.

Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) MP Vandana Chavan is an active user of FB,having reached the limit of maximum friends on the popular social media. Having uploaded many photos on FB that depict her political journey so far,she has as many as 116 groups and 53 general ‘likes’. She joined Twitter a couple of months back and has 206 followers on the micro-blogging site. MP Vandana Chavan said social media is a fantastic tool to reach out to people,share ideas and take feedback from the public during the busy schedule in the life of public representatives.

Among local Lok Sabha MPs,Shiv Sena MP from Shirur Shivaji Adhalrao Patil is very active on FB and Twitter. Having reached the maximum friends limit on FB,he appears to be almost a daily user of the social media that connects him with his party workers and followers.

NCP MP Supriya Sule is active on FB and has 822 followers on Twitter. Shiv Sena MP Gajanan Babar is also an active FB user and has reached the maximum friends limit. He has 525 followers. Tainted Congress MP Suresh Kalmadi’s FB and Twitter accounts seem to be no longer functional. His last tweet was on April 22,2009 and FB post more than couple of years back.

Several MLAs from Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad are active on FB,but have distanced themselves from Twitter. BJP MLAs Girish Bapat and Bhimrao Tapkir and Congress MLAs Ramesh Bagwe and Vinayak Nimhan and Shiv Sena’s Chandrakant Mokate and Mahadev Babar are among the most active FB users. So is the case with Pimpri-Chinchwad’s Vilas Lande and Anna Bansode,who regularly use social media sites. NCP’s Bapu Pathare from Vadgaon Sheri Lok Sabha constituency and BJP’s Madhuri Misal,however,seem not very keen on social media.

All MLAs active on social media have been posting their recent public appearances and the party’s official stand on certain issues on FB. Several of these MLAs were found tagged in photos by online friends. “Public representatives have to adopt tools like FB and Twitter. We can expect more penetration of these social media during the coming elections,” said Girish Bapat adding that he feels social media is an effective new age tool to connect with people.