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As part of the revamp of its communication and media outreach, the Congress launched its new look website (www. inc.in) on Monday without much fanfare.
The new-look website is transparent, up-to-date and interactive in nature. It is user-friendly, with a section devoted entirely to getting the public involved through chats, voices and requests for membership. For the first time, the party has a link for online donations, which are entitled to tax exemptions.
Although Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi has not been officially announced as the party’s prime ministerial candidate, the home page of the new website is devoted to Gandhi with his latest speeches, videos, visits to Muzaffarnagar relief camps etc. featured on it.
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One of the major drawbacks that Congress President Sonia Gandhi had pointed out after the recent poll debacle was the ‘inability of the party to spread awareness about its achievements.’ To eliminate this, the new portal gives prominence to the decade-long rule of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance and its rights-entitled legislations such as RTI, RTE and MNREGA.
Till now, the Congress’ website had been a stodgy affair, with bare minimum information being doled out on the net.
For a party which is known to be tight-lipped and closeted, this attempt to share details of interactions while drafting its manifesto or disclosing all the contact details of its several wings, which till now have been shrouded in secrecy, is a big step forward. The Bharatiya Janata Party had always been miles ahead of the Congress in its communication and social media outreach..
As senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel indicated in Gujarat during a training workshop of IT Cell of the party workers, “We will be creating our cyber army to counter the BJP's onslaught on social media which has become important in the run up to the 2014 general elections.”
