BJP slaps legal notice on Cong for 'stealing' its online ID

New Delhi, Oct 3 (PTI) Accusing the Congress of
"petty, pickpocket-like theft" of its online identity, the BJP
has slapped a legal notice on the ruling party which hit back
saying the saffron party was trying to politicise what can be
a "technological problem".
The BJP claimed that Congress has surreptitiously
created a portal with a similar domain name to divert users to
the AICC website.
BJP spokesperson Nirmala Sitaraman told reporters
Sunday that the legal notice was served on the Congress on
September 27, but there had been no official response from it.
She said a website www.bjp.com had come to its notice
recently and when the site was opened, it diverted the user to
the AICC website automatically.
When contacted, Congress spokesperson Shakil Ahmed
told PTI here,"I don't know the exact facts about the website.
But if it is true, there could be some technological problems.
It is unfortunate that BJP is trying to politicise a
technological problem,"
Sitaraman said,"the BJP sent a legal notice to the
Congress on a matter of petty theft...a theft so low...of its
political rival's identity. A pickpocket-like theft. But the
ruling party has not yet responded to it officially,"
"Political parties, when they registered as websites,
do so in the .org format as they are not commercial
institutions.
"Political parties do not register under .com because
commercial establishments usually have .com websites. But some
time back bjp.com has been created by some...we do not know
who," she said.
Since the website was "masked" and linked itself to
the Congress website, it was important for the BJP to know who
was behind it and hence the legal notice to the ruling party,
she added.
Sitaraman said the bjp.com website's owner details
were provided as Bharat Journals and Publications and some
telephone numbers in the US had been provided. When contacted,
the US phones were connected to answering machines, with
nobody responding to the calls.
"The Bharatiya Janata Party is popularly called and is
known as BJP the world over.
"It is a very funny and an odd thing. If Bharat
Journals and Publications was to run the bjp.com website they
should do it openly and in a transparent way. Why are they
then linking the website to the Congress website? It is
clearly an attempt to thieve BJP's identity," she added.
A lot of people the world over tried to reach BJP
through its website and "this is an attempt to divert that
traffic towards the Congress party. It is a clear
pickpocket...a very low, petty attempt by the ruling party to
take away the benefits of our identity," the BJP spokesperson
said.
"It is a deliberate theft and not an unknowingly or
innocently done affair and that's our allegation," she added.