By IANS,
New Delhi : In order to reach out to the younger generation, the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) has launched its election campaign website, designed by its ‘IT comrades’.
The website, www.vote.cpim.org set against a reddish background has the photo of party patriarch Jyoti Basu addressing a mammoth rally.
In a bid to influence the young voters who are 54 percent of the country’s population, party politburo member Sitaram Yechury launched the website here Wednesday.
“This young segment is increasingly using cyberspace. Our aim is to reach out to this young segment,” said Yechury, while launching the website.
The professionals behind the endeavour said there had been an attempt to hack the website.
“There was an attempt to hack the website, before it was launched,” said Prasenjit Bose, the convenor of the ‘IT comrades’ at the party headquarter here.
“I am not an IT professional. We have a group of young ‘IT comrades’ who are friends and well-wishers of our party. They have designed it with technical help from the Free Software group. All of us are professionals and comrades,” Prasenjit, who did his PhD in economics from the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), told IANS.
The CPI-M also has a separate team to manage the content of the website.
“Party politburo member Brinda Karat is the head of the team that manages the content,” Prasenjit said.
All the campaign material for the elections, including the party manifesto and the video clippings of the leader’s speech, are available on the website.
There is an option in the website to ask questions and give suggestions to the party.
Unlike the election campaign website of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L.K. Advani, there is no space for blogs on the Marxists’ website.