BJP starts ‘cyber war’

The next time you key in the words ‘Sonia Gandhi’ or ‘Manmohan Singh’ into the Google search engine, you will find a paid link on the top right corner of the screen trying to take your attention to L K Advani and the BJP. While the search will throw up legitimate results containing the key words searched for, the sponsored links on the right will throw up messages saying things like: ‘Do you know why Advaniji is a better leader, BJP a better party... If you don’t, then visit lkadvani.in.’ It’s a strategy devised by the infotech cell of the saffron party to lure away net surfers otherwise heading for websites of the Congress party or its leaders. Several other search words will lead to similar results. Try ‘Rahul Gandhi’ and you might get a link with a teaser like ‘Do you share the dream? 21st century, India’s century—Advani for PM’. Type ‘Congress party’ and you may see ‘BJP a better alternative: Learn how Advani plans to make the 21st century India’s century’. Sometimes the link is a blog and the teaser is: ‘Bloggers for L K Advani: Get the official blogger for Advani Button Now. Show your support.’ It goes without saying that the Congress is peeved at the way the BJP is trying to “encroach’’ on its cyberspace by getting sponsored links to divert surfers’ attentions. Ashish Gosalia, chairman of the science and technology cell of the state Congress, said, “This is not fair. They should not hijack our opportunity to attract surfers to our party websites. There are scores of internet users who daily type in Rahul, Sonia Gandhi or Congress party into search engines to access info about our party’s activities. The BJP seems to be desperate.’’ It amounts to something like a cyber war, he added. Gosalia said the Congress would not counter the move by employing similar “encroachment techniques’’ in cyberspace. “We are confident of publicising the websites of our leaders and the party through banners, posters and party booklets,’’ he said.Internet expert Vijay Mukhi said such strategies have been employed by automobile companies. “It had created a controversy between two companies years ago, but it is not illegal,’’ he stated. The BJP’s IT team comprises IIT engineers and one is even an IIT-IIM. It is learnt that the same team visited monster.com, naukri.com and social networking sites like Orkut to build a database of 12 lakh emails in the past six months. The party has already dispatched 40 lakh mails in the past two weeks.