By Navneet Mishra

New Delhi, Feb 22 (IANS): A social media war has erupted in poll-bound West Bengal. Supporters of the incumbent Trinamool Congress and the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are clashing not just on the streets every day, but in the virtual space as well.

So, when the Trinamool Congress launched its 'Bengal wants its own daughter' hashtag, the BJP supporters went on the counter-offensive. The BJP launched its own campaign hashtag which said 'The people of Bengal want freedom from Mamata' that drew a massive response on social media.

The blueprint for the Trinamool Congress campaign is designed by political strategist Prashant Kishor and on the BJP side, it is done by IT Cell head and BJP's co-incharge for West Bengal Amit Malviya.

On Feb 20, the Trinamool launched a special campaign through some videos and a special Twitter hashtag in Bangla that translates into 'Bengal wants its own daughter'.

The BJP struck back with the song Pishi Jao (Aunt please go). Like the Trinamool Congress, the BJP, too used a Bengali hashtag that translates into 'The people of Bengal want freedom from Mamata'.

In a video, the BJP highlighted the poverty, bad roads, political violence and joblessness in Bengal. Its hashtag drew 237,967 tweets. This number is at least four times the tweets generated by the Trinamool hashtag, claims the BJP.

BJP's co-incharge for West Bengal unit, Amit Malviya, told IANS: "The people of Bengal are upset with the Mamata Banerjee government. They are expressing their anger on social media. The electorate of Bengal is raising the issues of poverty, joblessness, violence and lax health services on social media. So, the BJP's Twitter campaign is getting energised on its own."