The crusaders of Digital India are finding themselves in the doldrums. The official site of BJP was hacked yesterday and it is ‘under maintenance’ since then. BJP denied hacking but everyone knows that! Screenshots of the hacked home page showed an unflattering meme of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, captioned with language containing abusive terms. We all know that cyberspace has also become war-field for Indian and Pakistani hackers.
That meme pokes fun at a clip in which German Chancellor Angela Merkel walks past the prime minister as he extends his hand, expecting her to shake it. A caption above the meme said, in abusive language: “Brothers and sisters, I’ve fooled all of you. Brothers and sisters, we’ve fooled all of you. More to come! Many, many congratulations!” Below the meme was a video with the song ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’.
The BJP website was down at the time when this story was last updated. Congress could not resist taking a swipe at its arch-rival. “If you’re not looking at the BJP website right now — you’re missing out,” said Divya Spandana, head of social media for the main opposition party.
Today, BJP sources denied the website had been hacked. “The website wasn’t hacked. It’s just a technical issue which is being fixed. No complaint has been lodged with the police. The website will be operational at the earliest,” a source in the BJP’s information technology cell said, requesting not to be named.
But Subimal Bhattacharjee, a cybersecurity expert contested the claim. “Some level of wrongdoing has happened. Someone did gain access to the website. BJP’s website is one of the most active political websites here with a lot of content,” he told NDTV.
“It’s good that instead of coming up with a back-up website, they are working to fix all the loopholes,” he added.
Let’s hope BJP retains its site as early as possible. Site under maintenance doesn’t look good for their propaganda.
