With the electoral bugle having been sounded, candidates and their supporters in West Bengal have begun their door-to-door campaigns. Much less noisily, a parallel campaign is underway, in which poll graffiti is scribbled on the ‘walls' of social networking sites and mute slogans raised on netizens' profiles.
Political parties and their supporters are relying on cyber-campaigns to reach out to an increasingly tech-savvy electorate like never before. While senior Communist Party of India (Marxist) leaders have opened personal accounts on popular social networking sites to directly interact with voters, the Trinamool Congress has roped in Hotmail co-founder Sabeer Bhatia as a consultant to develop its web-campaign tactics.
A recent Calcutta High Court order that restricts the use of microphones for campaign purposes till April 13 due to the ongoing board examinations has only intensified the cyber-campaign. Interestingly, the use of the Internet as a poll forum is not limited to political leaders and workers. Those who do not have any connection with politics have begun holding online discussion forums, conducting polls and writing blogs.
Communities discussing the elections, political issues and the possible outcome populate social networking sites such as Facebook, Orkut and Twitter.
Most of the participants are in the 18-40 age group. The messages posted on these forums make for interesting and informative reading, though at times it borders on the offensive.
That the veil of secrecy on one's political loyalty is a thing of the past is reflected in an increasing number of Facebook members openly flaunting their allegiance in the form of ‘PicBadges' — users make badges with symbols of their favourite party or pictures of leaders and pin them to their profiles.
Party websites have become more informative, interactive and are continually updated by dedicated cyber-teams.
While the website >www.cpimwb.org .in is a frontrunner, designed exclusively for the 2011 Assembly elections, the Trinamool Congress is trying to catch up by revamping its official site, www.aitmc.org, so that it becomes more election-friendly and interactive.
With the option of posting questions, suggestions and opinions on both sites, the parties claim that an average of 50,000 people from across the world visit the sites every month; the figure is expected to rise significantly with elections round the corner.
The other major parties in the State like the West Bengal Pradesh Congress and the State unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party, however, seem to be lagging behind in the cyber race, relying instead on their national websites to do the needful.
