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Left goes global, embraces Net
Left front in Kolkata launches website; site crashes as it
exceeds bandwidth
BY OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
2 June 2005: When their comrades in southern Indian state of Kerala are up in arms against the Smart City project, the ruling Left Front in West Bengal is going all out to embrace the brilliance of technology.
The Left Front, sensing victory in the high-profile Kolkata Municipal Corporation which has eluded them, has started a web site,
www.leftfront.org .
The site’s home page is entirely devoted to the Corporation election. It has a Bengali version also.
But it seems, the world wide web is something the Left should learn to tackle
better. The Front’s site, a brain child of a state minister
Manab Mukherjee, crashed even 24 hours before it was unveiled as the “site exceeded its bandwidth limit”.
The site also promotes a speech by the Chief Minister Budhadeb Bhattacharya, apart from poll manifestoes. Visitors can also interact with Left’s Mayoral candidate, Bikash Bhattacharjee, through the site.
The poll is slated for June 19. The Left is sensing victory after a section of Mamta’s Trinamool Congress parted ways with the firebrand leader and took to the Congress camp. Though West Bengal has remained a Left bastion, Kolkata has shown a general disinclination towards the comrades.
But with even a facade of opposition in the form of Trinamool coming a cropper due to intense factionalism, and a Congress dependent on Left for survival in Centre, it seems the Left is set to capture the elusive golden pot of Kolkata Corporation. And by embracing the Net for a municipal poll campaign, the Left can at least hope for a global village of sorts, though it may still take some time for the “State to wither away”.
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