Patna, Aug. 13: The Congress has found webcast option to reach out to maximum number of people in the state.

Today’s workshop on food security bill organised at the party’s state headquarters, Sadaquat Ashram, was webcast live so that the message is spread beyond the four walls of the office.

State Congress chief Ashok Choudhary said: “The idea behind the online initiative is to strengthen the party by giving a voice to its workers and open its doors for people. The tool is not aimed at garnering votes rather our intention is to take the party’s message far and wide. It is an attempt to gauge the pulse of not just youth but the people of Bihar at large.”

Sources said that both AICC general secretary-cum-Bihar affairs in-charge C.P. Joshi and Choudhary are on Twitter. “We captured proceedings of the event on our cellphones having internet access and synced the ‘Adhyaksh Bihar Congress’ Facebook page to a live streaming app (http://veetle.com/88127247/event/Workshop),” said a Congress leader, who supervised the entire webcast, on condition of anonymity. The AICC has sent two IT experts to oversee the programme.

Senior Congress leader Prem Chandra Mishra said: “In today’s world, one cannot ignore the impact of social media. We have decided to take the benefit of Facebook in getting our party’s messages heard across the globe. We have received a good response of the live webcast also.”

The Congress may not have a large presence in the state but it has gone quite a few miles ahead of other political outfits by using technology to reach out to youngsters.

The BJP vice-president, Sanjay Mayukh, said: “The state BJP is yet to take any step like webcasting its programmes.”

The JD(U) MLC, Neeraj Kumar, said: “People should be technologically sound but a huge majority of them are not tech-friendly yet.”

The RJD spokesman, Randhir Yadav, said: “Both the BJP and Congress have the base of tech users but that is not the case with the RJD though we too have a website and Facebook page.”

Graft concern

National Advisory Council member N.C. Saxena said the state government’s allotment of foodgrain would increase to 55 lakh tonnes from the present 37 lakh tonnes under the proposed food security ordinance. He, however, said the state government would have to monitor the scheme at all levels to prevent corruption.

“Bihar would be the biggest beneficiary of the food security bill,” said Saxena addressing the workshop on food security bill.