Recently, when Priyanka Chopra’s
fan following crossed 2,00,000, she was invited to visit the
Twitter headquarters in San Francisco. But soon afterwards, she
kicked up a controversy and had to backtrack instantly. While
shooting for the film Saat Khoon Maaf in Kashmir, the
actress tweeted that she will be "back to civilisation
soon". Realising the heartburn the sentence caused,
especially among the Kashmiris, she hastily issued a
clarification saying, "By ‘back to civilisation soon’,
I meant coming back to my regular life."
Aspiring to be as
popular as superstars, politicians, too, are blogging away
furiously. Not just that, they also keep a track of the
responses, upload their activities almost live on their websites
and have dedicated teams that keep their online presence
attractive and interactive.
And some like Minister of State
for External Affairs, Shashi Tharoor, have been courting
controversies on Twitter. He first kicked up a political storm,
while replying to a journalist, who asked him on Twitter:
"Tell us minister, next time you travel to Kerala, will it
be cattle class?" To this Tharoor replied:
"Absolutely, in cattle class out of solidarity with all our
holy cows." Though nobody in the Congress Party found it
funny, since then Tharoor’s fan following has been growing and
he now has over half a million followers on Twitter.
While
Tharoor does have the penchant to create a hullabaloo, there are
other young politicians who put their best foot forward on the
Internet. Milind Deora, MP from Mumbai (south), who has his
personal website www.milinddeora.com, was earlier a part of
www.intentblog.com, a blogging portal promoted by director
Shekhar Kapur and lifestyle guru Deepak Chopra. During his
active blogging days he would write on issues ranging from the
Right to Information Act to his favourite guitarist Buddy Guy’s
show in Mumbai. He even uploaded a picture of himself sharing
the stage with the ace guitarist. Now, with a website of his own
he might not be blogging a great deal but one can find all his
information on it. There is his profile, various activities that
he has undertaken and a contact link wherein people can write to
him.
Senior political leaders, too, are turning out to be
surprise Internet bloggers.
Former railway minister Lalu
Prasad Yadav was contributor to a celebrity blogging site
www.mypopkorn.com. Lalu’s posts got him more than 15,000
responses. While some praised his wit and commented on his
speeches, a majority of the respondents wrote to him regarding
the deficiencies of services in railways. Characteristically,
Lalu promised to take note and act on their suggestions. Lalu’s
response to those who wanted to know about his personal life was
simple. "To all those who want to know about my personal
life, I would like to say that it is like an open book. Through
my blog posts I will be telling all of you about it, my family
background, about my old attire and my present attire."
Another politician bit by the blogging bug is Karunanidhi’s
son M K Stalin, who is also Tamil Nadu’s Deputy Chief
Minister. Stalin’s site has a section on video highlights of
his and his party’s work, his speeches, readers’ comments
and cartoon of the day. Though the blog on his website
www.mkstalin.net has not been as popular as Lalu’s or Bachchan’s,
his effort has caught the attention of the young people in Tamil
Nadu and among Tamilians living overseas. Arun, who left a
comment on Stalin’s blog, writes, "I am extremely happy
to see that you are blogging now. It gives people like me
outside India a chance to interact with you. I look forward to
reading your blog, so kindly blog regularly for your fans around
the world."
Another southern politician Chandrababu Naidu’s
Telugu Desam Party portal www.telugudesam.org, too, is a vibrant
one. Apart from the party activities and releases, one can view
Naidu’s videos almost live (within 10-15 minutes of the actual
broadcast) and listen to the party radio that airs party news.
Despite the portal being in Telugu, it gets almost 2,00,000 hits
on any given day. Says Naidu, "We launched the portal in
2007 in English, but the feedback from our visitors was that
they found it difficult to understand the language, so when we
converted it in Telugu this April, the hits almost
doubled." The site has a dedicated online NTR fan club and
plans to open the same for Chandrababu Naidu soon.
The medium
of blogging is fast picking up even as politicians get
Internet-savvy. Another politician Naveen Jindal, too, has a
website to his name — www.naveenjindal.com. Apart from
politics, the site showcases the young MP’s sporting and
patriotic side. Time is a constraint with Jindal, who also
manages the steel and power businesses of the Jindal group, the
fourth largest private sector Indian business house in terms of
assets and sales turnover. But he realises the importance of
staying connected and takes an active interest in his
website.
So does Milind Deora. Says the young Congress MP from
Mumbai, "Mine is an urban constituency and I am constantly
in touch with my people through my portal. They keep writing
about their issues and give their opinion on my activities and
what I say," says Milind.
Internet, indeed, is bridging
the gap between politicians and the people they represent as
also celebrities and their fans. Politicians and stars are
making sure they are online when people respond to
their blogs or write to them on their
dedicated websites.
Aamir Khan finds
it a stress-busting activity. Shah Rukh Khan manages to find
time for it from his busy schedule and Shashi Tharoor is
hopelessly addicted to it. Over the past couple of years a
number of celebrities have begun to tweet and blog. People in
public life, both young as well as seasoned campaigners, are
active ‘online’ and are reaching out to their fans using the
Internet networking sites. 
The popularity of blogging can be assessed from the
fact that when Shah Rukh Khan (SRK) joined the microblogging
site Twitter under the name @iamsrk, he had more than 18,000
persons following him within 24 hours! He began blogging when he
was introduced to Twitter by best friend and filmmaker Karan
Johar. The actor has also set up www.kkr.in, the official
website of his IPL team Kolkata Knight Riders, where his blog is
a big draw. There is also a message from co-owner Juhi Chawla as
also the news about the team and how it is faring in the IPL-3.
Here fans can add their own blogspot or enter a contest or even
watch videos of previous matches.
