Dance for Democracy to Work for Democracy: AAP Volunteer Pulkit Sharma
 |
| Pulkit Sharma |
It was 2015 and Aam Aadmi Party was heading for assembly elections in Delhi. Volunteers were coming up with innovative campaign ideas. Dance for democracy, a flash mob show was one of them. Even without any experience in any kind of dancing, Pulkit Sharma joined the Dance for Democracy team and started his journey with AAP. Post Delhi assembly elections, he travelled to Punjab to campaign on ground. Since then, Pulkit is actively volunteering with AAP and presently mobilizing people with the help of social media. Though he was a huge AAP supporter since its inception, it took few years for him to finish school and decide his future path. Year 2013-14 was critical for him. He witnessed political debates everywhere. He was also one of the participants in those debates.
Post Delhi assembly elections, Pulkit came in contact with AAP social media team and engaged with them without any prior knowledge of digital content production or management. He learnt everything out of his passion for the party. At the beginning, he used to work couple of hours per day but increasing workload demanded more time. After finishing his bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering in 2017, Pulkit started as a full-time volunteer with AAP.
Pulkit is an active participant in design and development of AAP’s national social media campaigns. He is also coordinating with AAP state teams and bridging the communication gap on social media. Pulkit’s team generates social media content according to the need from different states and coordinate with them to spread it across different platforms, answering queries and designing strategies. Most of the team members are neither social media professionals nor expert in content creation. Team members work remotely and produce content in their extra time. Team develops content in three parts: 1) content based on day-to-day political activities in Delhi and India, 2) content based on Delhi government, and 3) independent content based on individual ideas.
Communication and getting feedback online is challenging. Physical debates from the year 2014 are now turned into social media debates in 2018. Environment on social media has also became dirty as people have started online abuse and trolling. But the team is calmly dealing with it and able to navigate the dialogue based on selected campaign agendas and issues that matter.
Since IT laws are not strictly implemented, trolling has become easy in our country. Fake accounts are created to abuse other people. If needed, threats are issued from these accounts. You might have heard about threats posed to some journalists. If you closely observe trolls on social media, there is a clear pattern. When something is talked about Arvind Kejriwal, trolls will come with certain set of “what about” questions. If you face anything like this, you can easily ignore them as it will lead you nowhere. Stay on agenda and continue talking about real issues and the trolls will continue disappearing.
The difference between AAP and other party social media teams can be easily identified. Other social media teams are focused on individual image building, debating on caste/religion issues, propagating fake surveys, attacking other leaders on personal issues etc. On the other hand, AAP social media campaigns are focused around issues related to people e.g. education, heath, environment, transportation etc. AAP social media team also counts their achievements which is missing from social media campaigns of other parties.
 |
| Pulkit Sharma during an event organized with CYSS |
There are also occasions when many AAP supporters spent a lot of time in genuinely writing a post on social media but they feel disappointed because no one commented on or liked their post. Such users should not be disappointed and continue sharing useful and factual thoughts. People out there on social media are reading them. There are users who don’t react to a social media post but not only they read long posts but also scan through comments to get a complete picture. Everyday a new topic is thrown at us and we jump into debates. Let’s not allow a set of people to hijack our conversations and drive the narrative in a direction leading to chaos. Conversation is the key which keeps us (so the politics) driving.
Social media team of AAP has been successful in spreading its ideology and achievements to different parts of India. Pulkit, who campaigned in Punjab for 8 months, has also travelled to Goa, Haryana and other parts of India and witnessed the potential of AAP. There is a huge following of Arvind Kejriwal and the work AAP is doing in Delhi. But, when it comes to vote, people don’t vote for AAP as they fear that their vote would be wasted on a party that won’t be able to form government. This fear is weakening day by day as vote share of AAP is increasing with every election. AAP social media team is also hitting the void and convincing people that AAP will not only form the government but also run the state for the welfare of people.
AAP social media volunteers have never received any formal training, they learnt everything from scratch and kept themselves updated with technologies on social media. There are some inputs from professionals who work in private sectors and provide few hours to train AAP volunteers. There are two things which keeps AAP social media volunteers motivated: 1) values according to which Aam Aadmi Party and Arvind Kejriwal work, and 2) friendship among volunteers that develops while working for AAP. AAP volunteers connect immediately with each other irrespective of where they live and what language they speak.
Watch complete video of AAP Ka Radio call with Pulkit Sharma.
Read More 🔻
Delhi Govt's Revolutionary Doorstep Delivery of Services by Gopal Mohan
Aniket Saxena: A volunteer since day one of AAP is shaping AAP campaigns on Social media
No comments