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The Saffron Winner
In this cyber race, without an iota of doubt, it was the saffron party that took the lead over its competitors. Numerous announcements emanated from the IT cell headquarters in Delhi, like the revamping of its party website (bjp.org) and the launch of a blog by the prime ministerial candidate LK Advani (blogs.lkadvani.in). Going by the figures, septuagenarian Advani was the most tech-active leader right now in India, posting blogs, chatting online, videos, images, and the works. Not only that there was a user group named Friends of the BJP, that religiously updated videos and blogs on different websites like YouTube and Orkut. According to BJP, its website www.lkadvani.com which was launched on November 8, 2008, was getting 20,000 unique hits everyday during the election campaign. The site boasted of some 150 archives, 300 photos, and some 700 pages of textual content.

The Cyber Chanakya for BJP was Prodyut Bora, the convener of the partys IT cell. The IIM-Ahemedabad alumni had a robust gameplan for the party and tied up the Advani website with social networking sites like Facebook, Orkut, etc. Even though the penetration of the Internet is still miniscule, around four crore, but of these around 60% live in top eight cities impacting around fifty Lok Sabha seats. So its a medium worth considering. says Bora.

Waking Giant
Congress (I) was initially slow to respond to the online onslaught but soon it woke up to the challenge. After initiali hibernation, the party portal projected a clean and revamped look. Biswajeet Prithvi Singh, chairman, computer department, Congress says, We agave a cleaner and leener look to our five-year-old website; and there was a team that is updating the content frequently, he says.

The party launched an online video community on You Tube, and there were scores and scores of Rahul fanclubs on Facebook and Orkut. Yet, the party never launched an individual blog or website for its biggest face in the election, Rahul Gandhi. We are not going to have any individualistic website, emphasised Singh.

And the Followers
So, where were the rest of the political parties when it came to cyberspace, one might wonder. Another technocrat who expectedly did well was Chandrababu Naidu and his Telugu Desam Party. In fact, there was one party website for the United Kingdom based non-resident Indians (which has an image of Naidu morphed onto a photograph of Obama with the White House in the background). The website also had an online contribution campaign wherein the people are asked to contribute through credit card, Internet enabled bank account, PayMate (Mobile payment), ITZ cash cards, debit cards, etc.

The comrades too belatedlywoke up to the power of the web. They launched a video community on YouTube to spread their message; and their website (cpim.org) was updated regularly. But even so there is still some amount of scepticism in the minds of the comrades when it comes to using technology. In a poor land like ours, canvassing and public meetings will be the mainstay for political parties. Such online campaigns can be a successful model for the US where Internet penetration is 100%; I have my doubts about India, says Prasanjeet Bose, convenor, research unit, CPM.

The comrades too belatedlywoke up to the power of the web. They launched a video community on YouTube to spread their message; and their website (cpim.org) was updated regularly. But even so there is still some amount of scepticism in the minds of the comrades when it comes to using technology. In a poor land like ours, canvassing and public meetings will be the mainstay for political parties. Such online campaigns can be a successful model for the US where Internet penetration is 100%; I have my doubts about India, says Prasanjeet Bose, convenor, research unit, CPM.

Beyond that, there was not much action in terms of political parties. Though prime ministerial candidate, Mayawati was supposedly going to launch her own blog , the party website itself (bahujansamajp.com) was not updated for a long long time. The last time it was done was in August 2008. Samajwadi Party (samajwadipartyindia.com) and RJD also seem to be oblivious to the power of the Internet, having rudimentary websites put up. That is much the case with the rest of the regional parties like Shiv Sena, NCP, etc. In fact, firebrand Mamata Banerjees website (trinamoolcongress.com) did not work at all.

In a way, all major political parties tried to reach mass and class, and the use of the online medium was an inseparable part of their election campaign this year. The biggest motivator was the cost factor. It made good sense as well, says Mrutunjoy Mishra, co-founder, Juxtconsult.com adding, By spending some Rs 3-4 lakh, one can get around 4 mn impressions which is far cheaper when compared to other media channels like television or outdoor.

In Conclusion
What these elections taught was that there are a lot of advantages that the parties can draw from the Internet. For instance, the election code of conduct is still not clear, on how the promotion on the Internet can be effected. For instance, all campaigning in other mediums has to end twenty-four hours before the polling, but candidates can still reach out to their communities through online websites even at the last minute. This advantage can be exploited by the parties in future till there is an explicit direction given by the Election Commission.

But whether this entire web push resulted in gains on the ground is still debatable. It did work in the US, but whether it really worked in India this time is still a far-fetched question? The Obama template had little relevance to the bulk of the 400mn voters that actually elected 543 MPs in India on the basis of caste, creed and Rs 2 per kg rice promises. Nonetheless, this was a preliminary round and surely by 2014, the Internet will be a powerful medium without doubt. As more and more Indians log on to the Internet it is inevitable. So while Maos gunpowder brought revolutions and power till some decades back; it will be copper in the future. And this years election might just give an indication of the same.

Shashwat DC
shashwatc@cybermedia.co.in

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