Electoral campaigning through social media during pandemic in Bihar legislative assembly election: An analysis

Abstract

This paper discusses the rising popularity of social media in the Bihar Legislative Assembly election when the Election Commission of India (ECI) decided to hold the election after consulting the various political parties and the Chief Electoral Officers, as scheduled and issued a vast guideline under the COVID-19 Protocol for conducting the election during the COVID-19 pandemic, which rigorously forbade physical campaigning such as road shows, door-to-door campaigns, and public meetings. This paper aims to look at the challenges while holding the Legislative Assembly election during the outbreak, assess political parties' social media strategies throughout the election campaigning, and gauge how successful social media may be in election campaigning. This paper concludes that despite being the first state legislative assembly election after the pandemic, the election was successfully conducted by gaining 57.05 votes which is 0.39 percent more than the 56.66 percent of the 2015 assembly election.