Social media campaign offers 'advisory’ to voters on 'secular’ candidates

After the high turnout in the first big phase of elections in 14 States and Union Territories held on April 10, poll observers said that they could sense ‘tactical’ voting by secular and minority voters in favour of the ‘strongest’ candidates pitted against ‘divisive and communal’ ones, especially in Delhi and Western Uttar Pradesh.

Now, to counter the ‘Modi wave’, a new campaign has started on social media networks offering voters an ‘advisory’ to help them identify candidates best placed to defeat those with a “divisive” agenda.

Called “NoMore Wasted Votes”, the campaign’s Facebook page named such candidates in constituencies that went to polls on April 10 and said it would come out with such a list before each phase of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

For instance, in Western UP (which includes riot-hit Muzzafarnagar), among the ‘strongest’ candidates suggested by NoMore against the BJP-led NDA were those belonging to the Bahujan Samaj Party, Rashtriya Lok Dal, Congress and Aam Aadmi Party.

Interestingly, in Delhi, NoMore pitched for AAP candidates in five seats, but had ‘no recommendation” for Chandni Chowk as the “contest was too tight”, and pitched for Congress candidate Ajay Maken in New Delhi over AAP’s Ashish Khetan.

In Kerala and Tripura, where the NDA is not strong, the campaign urged people to ‘vote freely’.

Loosely modelled on such campaigns run in countries like Canada and the UK to save ‘wasting’ of votes , the campaign, being run on Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, YouTube and via SMS, claims to be “a non-funded, non-party affiliated platform that aims to challenge the lies and hatred that Narendra Modi represents,” and adds that it “does not endorse any political party''.

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