Banna’s poll battle on cyber space
Vijay DEO JHA

“Make your vote count. Vote for Banna Gupta, it is easier than thinking,common sense makes good government.”
Bleeping above is a convincing plea and an insistent relief from raucouspoll campaign by robust lungs in the Jamshedpur battlefield: a serial bannerinvitation to visit *http://bannagupta.com/*, the fledgling, but flourishingwebsite of the Congress candidate Banna Gupta.

The adversary quarters—the JMM, BJP, JVM and AJSU—might have encroached uponthe Jamshedpur battlefield by a juggernaut campaign by banners and buntings,the cyber space is an exclusive domain where Banna flaunts with 4552 visitless than a week time. His poll campaign on the cyber space is powered by‘Anmoul Web Solution.’

If you thought that Banna all did out of fancy, and an uncouth copy of hisparty bigwigs likes Rahul Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi, think again.

“There is a vast invisible lost of voters mostly youths who keep tab overcampaign through mediums like internet. There are people for whom voting isnot just a matter of political allegiance who rather will demand a veryconvincing argument before casting their votes in their favour,” Banna said.

Unfortunately for him, Jamshedpur isn’t a web-saturated environment exceptits urban spares, sizeable numbers of electorates that matter the most, arelocked in hard-to-reach and no network area.

“I don’t claim that cyber can do all the campaigning for me…and I am notrelying on cyber only. I am visiting constituencies and constituents,” Bannasaid. Where network fails Banna ensures his footfall.

Call it his fancy, call it his claim; Banna connects Jamshedpur with Japanand Jamaica too. “There is world outside Jamshedpur also. There are a lot ofpeople of Jamshedpur living in Japan, Jamaica and other parts of the worldwho may be interested in knowing about election and candidates,” he argued.

But Jamshedpur’s minuscule web community not more than of the 10 percent ofthe total population is no damper to the team that propels Banna’s cyber-runuploading megabytes of campaign details and others.

The battle for Jamshedpur is less than a week away, but the conquest ofcyberia is being well ensured for ‘Banna. His adversaries like DineshnandaGoswami (BJP), Sudhir Mahto (JMM), Ajay Kumar (JVM) and Suman Mahto (TMC)are far behind.

Even world’s most powerful search engine Google seems to be in sync withBanna’s giant leap in the politics: 84,500 web result in a single hit; farfrom more than what his main rival Goswami yields—1770. Banna is aeons aheadof his competitors.

Rahul Gandhi may not oblige him by campaigning for him, Banna’s cyberpromoters are close to sealing a poll deal with electorates. Tap “Banna forJamshedpur” he will pop up along with Rahul. “Elect Banna Gupta time for anew generation of leaders to step-up,” it scrolls — must read it in contestof Rahul.

What others have scored on the Google hit, are, after all, very low whatBanna quickly achieved. But, even if Banna is poaching on his rivals withpredatory alacrity on the web space the real battle lies somewhere else.