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Onkar Singh in New Delhi

The ensuing parliamentary elections will be remembered for setting up a new milestone. Political parties and candidates besides going in for conventional methods of wooing the electorate, have also gone in for the latest in information technology to garner votes. Web sites have been launched to entice voters who are short of time and do not want to attend the public meetings and election rallies to know what the political parties have to say.

First to go in for the high-tech campaign was the former chief minister of Delhi Sahib Singh Verma. The site www.sahibsingh.com lists his achievements as a politician apart from proposing what all he would like to do for his constituency once he is elected. Sahib Singh Verma is the Bharatiya Janata Party's candidate from Outer Delhi constituency.

Another BJP candidate V K Malhotra from South Delhi has also launched his own web site. Www.professorvkmalhotra.com gives details of the latest programmes of the party candidate and the response of the electorate in each public meeting.

But when the Congress party announced the launching of its own web site with much fanfare a couple of days ago in the name of its party president, there were hopes that the site would provide much needed interaction between Sonia Gandhi and Congress supporters.

Mediapersons in particular were happy because they thought their questions would be answered directly since the site promised that the Congress president would herself respond within twenty four hours to each question.

Loads of journalists sent in their questions through www.soniagandhionline.com. But they were in for a disappointment. A journalist was heard grumbling in the Congress headquarters this afternoon that the so- called web site is nothing but a myth. " I have sent questions almost seventy two hours ago. Till now there is no response whatsoever," he said indignantly.

Tom Wadekkan, media in-charge in the Congress party headquarters admitted that there was some problem in answering the questions. "When we launched the site in the name of Congress president Sonia Gandhi we did not expect that people would flood us with questions. So far we have received more then ten thousand questions and hundred others are pouring in every day. You would appreciate that it is not humanly possible to answer this magnitude of questions in such a short period of time. A team of ten experts has been set up to look into the questions and ensure that the questions are not repeated. Once that is done the questions would be put before the Congress president who would personally answer all the questions. Till then you will have to bear with us," he pleaded.

Over forty four thousand web sites are dealing with the Indian elections on the Internet. All India Radio, Election Commission of India, British Broadcasting Corporation and innumerable others besides the major political parties themselves have gone online for the elections.

The Communist Party of India-Marxist and the BJP have claimed tremendous response to their sites. Kanchan Gupta, a senior member of the BJP media cell, told rediff.com that the BJP site was getting almost three to five hundred hits everyday. "We get questions which are addressed to all the leaders and particularly to Atalji. Some people even send suggestions and tell us how to improve our election prospects," Gupta said. "Our site is www.bjporg," he added.

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