Cyber war unleashed ahead of Gujarat polls

Ahmedabad, Apr 9: The Gujarat polls are still eight months away. But the cyber space has already become a battlefield between the supporters of tech-savvy Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and his opponents.

Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, blogs, e-mails, websites, video uploading sites and every possible avenue on the internet is being used to attract the attention of the net-savvy, especially youths, towards Modi. His opponents, chiefly the Congress, which calls him an 'internet manipulator' is not lagging behind this time in trying to match him on every step in the cyber space. Also, some NGOs opposed to Modi, have also been very active on the internet in the campaign against him.

The latest flash point between the two sides was the 'Time' magazine online poll to select 100 most influential people list. Modi after being interviewed by the magazine was nominated for the top 100 and his name was put up for voting. He was leading the positive votes for the first few days, and then his opponents swung into action and polled most negative votes. He is still on third position with 2,56,792 positive votes but his negative numbers are higher with 2,66,684 votes. The final results will be announced by the Time magazine on Apr 17.

"What the supporters of the Chief Minister were doing was just a manipulation of the internet to make him repositioned as one of the top influential leader of the year. This was not a natural vote as we know that his supporters were manipulating it. So his opponents have voted against him as they have come to know reality of things in Gujarat," Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi said.

PTI