E-campaigning to reach out to tech-savvy voters

KOLKATA:Campaigning for the forthcoming Lok Sabha election will soon be visible throughblogs, social networking sites and interactive websites. Prominent politicalparties of the state have plans of making their presence felt throughe-campaigning. Change in the social and economic fabric of society has made theweb-based campaign as much important as the conventional door-to-door campaignand pamphlet distribution. "Our party already has a website, whichis updated frequently. At the same time, we realize that interactive web-basedcampaigning is required to reach out to the professionals and the young. We havestarted working on this mechanism and soon there will be blogs, interactivecommunities on popular social networking sites and forums in websites on ourpolicies, achievements and issues we are fighting on. There could be a separatewebsite only for this election to facilitate interaction with our sympathizersand broaden the spectrum of supporters," said a CPM spokesperson.The party, however, will not approach any specialized firm for this.Some IT professionals, who are party sympathizers, would be responsible for thisweb-based campaign. The state wing of the Congress party though isstill undecided on how to tap the web-based resource for campaigning. "We have awebsite, which was created in 2004 and linked to the AICC website. We have nevertampered' with it. So, decisions regarding e-campaigning or updating it will betaken by the headquarters in New Delhi. If they do it, we will follow suit,"said a Congress worker. But its ally, Trinamool Congress, haselaborate plans for e-campaigning. "Some of our sympathizers have alreadycreated communities at social networking sites and interactions take placeregularly. Also, our website is interactive with blogs and forums. We are stillworking on our campaign programme and e-campaigning is in the pipeline," saidparty leader Saugata Roy. The Trinamool website is maintained byNishant Infotech. "We are working on developing it further for the election tomake it even more interactive and accessible to a larger population," said anofficial of the firm.