As Lok Sabha elections come to an end, many of our netas sent a clear message: Yes, we can… twitter like Obama! When the newly elected Barack Obama delivered his Presidential speech, many in the crowd greeted his words with near-hysteria. There’s no other politician who has used Twitter, Facebook and other social networking Web sites like Obama has, says an NYT article. With Twitter, he “soaks his followers” wit h thoughts for the day. He diverts traffic to his Web site and oftentimes displays links to speeches not available on TV. “His followers are saturated in his message”, and he also takes maximum advantage of reaching out to them without being “diluted by media pundits.”

Indian politicians too seem to be realising the value of ‘actually’ reaching out to people with ‘real’ solutions rather than rhetoric and slogans. This showed up amply in their campaigning strategy this time round.

In the 2004 elections, the BJP allocated only 5 per cent of its campaign budget towards virtual canvassing, revamping its Web site, and pushing out text messages, pre-recorded voice clips and emails to its existing voter base. Things have changed a lot in five years.

The party’s prime ministerial candidate, the octogenarian L.K. Advani has by far been the most ‘virtually available politician’ in the current elections. Though Advani was not visible on Twitter, he and his supporters engaged voters through his Web site, www.lkadvani.in, both in English and Hindi. Sites such as Facebook or Orkut allow the use of regional languages. Advani has a group in Facebook which links to his Web site. In fact, in one of his speeches, Advani said that “the Internet is the most democratic of all the communication platforms invented”.

Every politician worth his salt claims to represent the aam aadmi and his interests, and attempts to prove he is one among them. Twitter proved a handy tool for the netas to display the “close bond they shared with the voter” and their intention to “always be there for you”.

Sample this tweet from Rahul Gandhi’s official Twitter page, where he has about 350 followers to date: “Sorry I could not reply to everyone, but I have to log off. Drag everyone you know to the poll booths, apathy is detrimental to democracy!”

Though the younger politicians did seemingly attempt to answer questions, towards the final phase of elections it proved trickier — I couldn’t get even one of them to answer my re-tweets.

With millions of first-time voters involved this time, political parties were more than willing to pull all stops to woo and “engage” them. Besides discussions on political and socioeconomic concerns, the wannabe netas have “reached out” even with ‘updates’ on current political (or personal) status. And taking a cue from the Obama “spread the word” mantra, Indian politicians are exhorting supporters to rope in friends and friends of friends in a viral chain. Shashi Tharoor, former UN under secretary general and Congress candidate from Thiruvananthapuram, is among those whose campaign material included SMS 2.0 and other forms of Web 2.0. He skilfully integrated the two to keep his supporters engaged. One of his latest tweets directed me to his blog on the saddest corruption stories he has ever heard.

But do active conversations on Twitter or Facebook translate into active politics?

With politics around can the ‘big fights’ be far away? The cyber-zone too was witness to some spirited slanging matches. If you happened to be one of the 540 followers of Narendra Modi on Twitter, which I volunteered to be for a few days, you too would have tuned into the wordy volleys from the Gujarat Chief Minister and star BJP campaigner. Through a few tweets, with potential to develop into heated discussions, he comes up with posers such as “Can Congress give the common man security?” Right from the Mumbai terror attacks to the way Muslims are treated in Gujarat, Modi thrusts and parries on several contentious issues.

Whoever said online political campaigns lack drama?

While tweets are restricted to 140 characters each, updates on Facebook and other networking sites have no such limits. But, unlike in Facebook, anyone on Twitter can follow your updates. Perhaps this gives rise to security fears and possibly explains why fewer netas are on Twitter as compared to Facebook.From Manmohan Singh (3,362 supporters) and Sonia Gandhi (1,500) to Milind Deora, Rahul Gandhi (3,755), Shashi Tharoor (214) and even Lalu Prasad Yadav (41), all of them have a Facebook account peppered with their personal (and political) stories. However, some politicos have their party workers doing the Facebooking and Tweeting on their behalf.

While some Web-savvy politicos preferred a presence on twittgroups.com/group/indiavoting, rather than have a personal Twitter page, many others created personal Web sites and even blogs to spread their campaign word.

Bihar strongman Lalu Prasad Yadav, a recent entrant to Twitter, had this to say in his first tweet: “Just joined this twitter thing. Hope this (will) prove to be phenomenal in election campaigning in Bihar. Well I love technology. By the way guys, do you feel improvement in the railway system the way I managed it? I am all ears.” Unfortunately, he has no followers, on Twitter that is, as of now.

Indian leaders have attracted fewer followers on Twitter compared to their US counterparts such as Barack Obama (11.26 lakh followers), Al Gore (7.67 lakh), and John McCain (5.91 lakh). While it’s true that online campaigns in India largely targeted tech-savvy young voters, it is also a fact that a vast majority of our voters are on the wrong side of the digital divide where the Net remains impenetrable.