The Congress’ Madhya Pradesh unit on Monday said it will consider the social media presence of aspiring candidates when allotting party tickets for upcoming Assembly elections. Madhya Pradesh is scheduled to go to the polls in 2018 along with Mizoram, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.

The Opposition party issued a notification about the eligibility criteria on September 2. The statement said that social media presence will be a deciding factor for poll candidate selection in other states too.

The Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee told aspiring candidates that they will need 15,000 likes on their Facebook page, 5,000 followers on Twitter and a WhatsApp group for booth-level workers, ANI shared a statement issued by the party as saying.

The individual is also expected to like, retweet and share every post published by the state Congress and committee’s Twitter accounts.

The party asked its workers and aspiring candidates to seek help from its information technology cell to comply with the order.