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Points for retweets & lunch with ex-MP dad — how a Congress candidate inspires his cadre

Bhavya Bishnoi, the Congress candidate from Hisar, has turned to social media to motivate party workers in a battle of dynasts at the Haryana constituency.

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New Delhi: An invitation for lunch with his prominent politician father and a T-shirt — that’s how Bhavya Bishnoi, the Congress candidate from Haryana’s Hisar Lok Sabha constituency, is motivating his party’s foot-soldiers.

And the 26-year-old, who is the son of former MP Kuldeep Bishnoi and the grandson of former Haryana chief minister Bhajan Lal, is relying on new-age analytics to reward the most “hard-working” party volunteers.

In September last year, with the help of ConnectHub, a digital marketing company, the young Bishnoi dynast launched ‘Team Bhavya’ — an Android mobile application that tracks the social media activity of his campaign volunteers, rewarding them with points for every re-tweet, like, referral and Facebook post.

The top 10 users with the most points on the app are then invited to lunch at the Bishnoi family home every month.

“The app is designed to gamify the way social media activity is taking place in our camp,” Bhavya tells ThePrint. “Earlier it was hard to keep track of who is actually active, especially as the volunteer base increased over time.”

The idea behind incentivising work, Bhavya says, came during his stint as the India spokesperson for the Global Citizen Festival, an annual music festival organised by the Global Poverty Project, in 2016. Bhavya says he soon realised that people are far more likely to carry out charitable acts if perks such free tickets for concerts by Coldplay (the British rock band) are up for grabs in exchange.

“I applied the same principle here — that social action increases with the incentive of reward,” he says. And for the Congress workers, Bhavya says, “A T-shirt and an opportunity to have lunch with my father is enough. They feel a lot of affection for my father and it’s simple really to be able to give that to them.”

Bhavya’s family — the Bishnois of Hisar — are the only household that managed to galvanise the non-Jat votes in the state. His grandfather, Bhajan Lal, is famously referred to as the architect of the Aaya Ram, Gaya Ram politics, a term used to denote flimsy political turncoats. His mother, Renuka Bishnoi, is also a serving MLA in the state.

Bhavya, who will be the youngest MP in the Lok Sabha if he is elected, is locked in a battle of dynasts in Hisar, where is up against Union Steel Minister Birender Singh’s son, Brijendra (BJP), and Dushyant Chautala from the Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) and AAP alliance.

The constituency, along with the other nine seats in Haryana, votes in the sixth phase on 12 May.

Bhavya Bishnoi
Bhavya Bishnoi | Photo: Praveen Jain | ThePrint

Also read: BJP is looking to get around caste, the pulse of Haryana politics, and win the state


The app behind the campaign

According to Shiv Bhaskar Dravid, CEO of ConnectHub, Team Bhavya currently has 1,000 active daily users, with a large portion of the initial app downloads taking place among the core volunteer base.

“Unlike the BJP, the Congress isn’t a cadre party, making keeping track of volunteers exceptionally hard,” Shiv told ThePrint. “With Team Bhavya, we have streamlined the various social media apps into one platform, allowing content to reach the volunteers and for feedback of their work to reach Bhavya.”

But Team Bhavya isn’t the only app on the young politician’s phone. Shiv tells ThePrint that ConnectHub has collaborated with the Hisar candidate to use technology across three to four apps to mine significant data.

Teams of volunteers are constantly updating Bhavya’s phone with personalised information about campaign workers — from their birthdays, occupation, the village in which they were born to their education and employment status, Bhavya tries to keep up with it all.

“So that when he’s visiting a particular area or working directly with a volunteer, he can connect with them in a personal way,” Shiv says.

Bhavya tells ThePrint that despite his age, he is well-versed in politics.

“Some people might still think that I am too young to be in politics but I have been working with the people of Hisar in many capacities for the past six years,” says Bhavya, adding that “it can be overwhelming, but it’s not intimidating. I am grateful for the support”.


Also read: How 5 families over 3 generations have controlled Haryana’s politics from day one


 

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