The Trinamul Chhatra Parishad used its foundation day event on Friday to test how social media savvy its members were as it felt having the skill was necessary to take on the BJP’s IT cell engaged in spreading “fake news” about the Mamata Banerjee government and her party.

As chief minister Mamata Banerjee virtually addressed the Trinamul’s students’ organisation on its foundation day, the party leaders had asked its workers across Bengal to share, comment and like the speech to test the social media skills of the youths.

Trinamul insiders said all district presidents of the TMCP had been given specific targets to share, comment and like Mamata’s speech that went live on the party’s official Facebook page.

“After the programme was fixed last week, all the TMCP leaders were asked to direct their juniors in various blocks, villages and towns to reach out to a significant number of people through social media platforms. As it was a virtual meet, the party wanted to know how many people would listen to Mamata’s speech,” a senior Trinamul leader said.

Trinamul insiders say the BJP’s IT cell was busy maligning the state government to create an anti-Mamata narrative in the state. “We need to counter the BJP and this is where the social media skills of our workers will help,” said a Trinamul leader in Hooghly.

Party sources said the effort wielded result as three lakh viewers commented on Mamata’s speech on Facebook while there were 56,000 shares. This is way above Mamata’s July 21 speech that drew 1.6 lakh comments and 15,000 shares on Facebook.

“The statistics clearly show that the move worked. However, we need to make our young party workers even more social media savvy,” said a party leader.

“The BJP is trying to misguide people by posting photographs and videos from Bihar, Rajasthan and Bangladesh to distort facts and circulating those through social media to malign the state. I believe that such moves to distort fact will not work at all as my force of youths and students is there on the ground,” said Mamata in her speech referring to the BJP’s IT cell and the need to counter it.

Gopal Roy, the TMCP president in Hooghly, said: “We had a target to generate 40,000 shares and comments. I am yet to get reports from all blocks but it would be no less than a lakh.”

Kiriti Acharya, the president of the youth wing in Purulia, said: “Our target was one lakh shares and comments and we did achieve it.”

Back to Trinamul

MLA from Bankura’s Bishnupur Tusharkanti Bhattacharya, who had left Trinamul to join the BJP after the 2019 Lok Sabha poll, returned to Trinamul on Friday.

Battacharya had won from Bishnupur seat on a Congress ticket and later joined Trinamul. However, he had switched over to the BJP in the presence of party’s Bengal minder Kailash Vijayvargiya in June last year.