Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

Assembly polls log on to cyberspace

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Campaigning for the Assembly election is all set for the high-tech mode. From the traditional street-corner meetings and house visits, verbal war will now be fought increasingly on cyberspace.

Emergence of the new media and its crucial role in heralding changes in countries like Egypt, seem to have inspired campaign managers to tap its potential.

The Left Democratic Front (LDF) and the United Democratic Front (UDF) are vying with each other to hog prime slot on the cyberspace, which forms public opinion, especially among IT professionals and youth, who tend be disinterested in the politics.

Hosting a website was a customary exercise in the previous elections, too, but of late, there is a constant effort to update the websites and trigger discussions on Twitter and also through blogs.

Lively discussions on development issues that gripped the State during the past five years as well as divergent political stands are set to occupy the cyberspace in the run-up to the elections.

The fronts have launched own sites to entice voters. The fronts had taken the plunge well ahead of the elections. Almost two months ago, a team of IT professionals had initiated steps for activating the website ldfkeralam.org using free software. The LDF website highlights the achievements of the government in various realms during the past five years and the UDF website udf.org.in calls for a change of guard in the State.

The activists and sympathisers of both fronts are contributing their mite in livening up discussions on pet topics.

Twitter

Twitter and Facebook have come in handy for e-campaigners to kick off debates . Intense e-mail and SMS campaigns, too, are in the offing.

About 50,000 to one lakh messages focussing on the welfare and development initiatives of the LDF government will be heading for the mobile phones soon.

An equal volume of emails will too will start flying once the campaign gains momentum.

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