After the electoral reverses the BJP has suffered at the hands of the Congress, the party now claims to be at the receiving end in cyberspace too.
On Sunday, the party said it had served a legal notice to the Congress, accusing it of “petty, pickpocket-like theft’’ of its online identity. Clearly, the clash in the virtual world promises to be as fierce as that over ballots.
The notice, served on September 27, accuses the Congress of clandestinely creating a web portal—www.bjp.com—which, it claimed, was diverting users to the Congress website. The address of the official BJP website iswww.bjp.org.
BJP spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman said they are yet to receive a response from the ruling party.
Congress leader and Rajya Sabha MP Rajiv Shukla said his party was not aware of any such notice. “The Congress is not into these kind of things. We are not aware of any legal notice sent to the party by the BJP,’’ he said. TNN
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‘masked’ website
New Delhi: The suspected cyber ambush of the BJP’s website was noticed when party managers spotted a sharp fall in hits on its official website even after the Ayodhya verdict. A check revealed the existence ofwww.bjp.com that was directing puzzled users to the Congress site.
“The BJP sent a legal notice to the Congress on a matter of petty theft... a theft so low... of its political rival’s identity. A pickpocket-like theft... but the ruling party has not yet responded to it officially,’’ said party spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman. The issue might not be more than an irritant but it seems to have got under the skin of the BJP which sees itself as cybersavvy and looks for support on the internet.
“Political parties register in .org format and it is commercial establishments which have .com websites. But sometime back, bjp.com was created by somebody... we do not know who,’’ Sitharaman said.
Party leaders said as the website was ‘masked’ and linked itself to the Congress website, it was important for the BJP to know who was behind it and, hence, the legal notice to the ruling party.
The bjp.com website’s owner details were apparently provided as Bharat Journals and Publications and some telephone numbers in the US were mentioned. There was no response from these numbers, which were found connected to answering machines. “It is a very funny and an odd thing. If Bharat Journals and Publications were to run the bjp.com website, they should do it openly and in a transparent way. Why are they linking the website to the Congress website? It is clearly an attempt to steal the BJP’s identity,’’ Sitharaman said.
The BJP was worried over low hits on its website on September 30, the day the Ayodhya title suit verdict was out. The BJP said those who tried to visit the BJP website were disappointed as they were redirected to aicc.com. The BJP alleged that the AICC “bought’’ the website bjp.com from a foreigner to “mislead’’ the people visiting its website.
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