Charm of the web lost for the BJP?

Advani - who was the party's prime ministerial candidate - has been virtually absent from blogosphere since the BJP's rout in the Lok Sabha elections last year. The 82-year-old's new post  on Jan 25 came after several months.

In his first post, Advani had said: "I am excited by the idea of using the internet as a platform for political communication and, especially, for election campaign."
When blog.lkadvani.in was launched as part of the portal lkadvani.in, Advani was expected to blog two-three times a week.

Advani's colleague Murli Manohar Joshi, who joined the blogger's bandwagon after him, has also been inactive on his blog "Reflections...." since Oct 1, 2009.

"The party's focus during the 2009 elections was internet users who were young and lived in urban areas. The party wanted to reach out to first-time voters, who were at least 40 percent of the electorate," said a functionary of the party's Information Technology Cell.

The BJP Maharashtra unit's Information Technology Cell convener Vinit Goenka had started using Twitter, an internet-based social networking application, some time in August last year. But his last post was on Oct 11, 2009.

"We have stopped right now because I have been travelling a lot. During elections you vie for visibility; after elections you do constructive work," Goenka said.

"It is very much in my mind. After the national executive meet in mid-February, we will again start. It is not that its priority has gone down."

The BJP's new chief, Nitin Gadkari, who is former chief of the party's Maharashtra unit, has been stressing the importance of IT.

India has nearly 50 million internet users, according to a study by digital advertising and marketing firm Komli Media.