The Joke’s on Who?

A cat fight of sorts has broken out between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress over a website that does not belong to either.

A cat fight of sorts has broken out between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress over a website that does not belong to either. The BJP issued a legal notice to the Congress on 25 September after it found that the website bjp.com was redirecting visitors to the All India Congress Committee’s site.  

Bjp.com does not belong to the BJP either, whose site has been at bjp.org since 1995 (according to the BJP’s notice to the AICC). But the principal opposition party contends in its notice that the abbreviation BJP ‘widely denotes the political party that has a mass following, support and membership both in India and abroad’ and the Congress is playing mischief perhaps through a cybersquatter. After it got no response to the notice, in which the BJP’s lawyers sought a reply ‘within 48 hours’, the party went public with its allegations. The Congress reacted with characteristic nonchalance, its spokesperson Jayanthi Natrajan dismissing the charges as “juvenile and ridiculous”. Natrajan added: “The accusation clearly shows that the BJP is totally bankrupt and desperate for publicity.” The Congress’ response left the BJP smarting, but in the meanwhile the URL in question has been delinked from the Congress website. BJP spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman has reacted to Natrajan’s words, saying the Congress ought to have acted more responsibly. “The Bharatiya Janata Party is keeping a keen watch on developments. If the site revives its link with the AICC, we shall further pursue all the legal options available,” she said. The only people amused are neutral onlookers.

BJPbjp.comCongress