Assembly elections results shiver cyber space

BANGALORE, INDIA: The waiting, the mystery and the speculations are over. Friday the 13 proved to be disastrous (as expected) for the Left and the DMK. With the introduction of the electronic voting machine the results have become faster like the IPL. So naturally, the fastness attracts more and more people not just to TV but the Internet too.

The web world is literally abuzz with the Assembly elections news. And taking the fever into account, the Election Commission of India as well as the Chief Electoral Officers of the respective states have promptly updated the results thus giving a clear picture to the people. Even as the TV channels are competing neck-to-neck to break the results first, the virtual space cannot be far behind! Even there are Twitter and Facebook pages that catch the hot news instantly.

The craze for the people to know the trends of the results was visible from the traffic to the regional news portals, especially in Malayalam. Even the Election Commission site as well as the sites of media majors like Malayala Manorama and Asianet were not opening in the early hours due to the heavy traffic, till the neck-to-neck competition in the state somewhat consolidated in favour of UDF.

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The election result assumed significance this time with the Kerala EC (Election Commission) deploying facilities for the live streaming of polls in the state. The EC had deployed live-streaming of elections to ensure a fair polling. The basic aim of introducing the cyber monitoring facility at polling booths was to enable the election department to monitor the proceedings in a booth from anywhere over the Internet and access the live images.

Also the parivartan (change) factor in West Bengal is a major element that drives traffic into different Websites. Will Mamata Banerjee be able to rout the Left Front was the question they asked? People were eager to know the update second by second as Mamata Didi began her historic journey from the Rail Bhavan to the Writer's Building. And, interestingly, Didi's 'Parivartan' journey had used the potential of platforms like Facebook.

In Tamil Nadu, where arch rivals AIADMK and DMK lock horns, the interest is on the impact of the 2G scam on the electoral results. Also there is the million dollar question — will DMK be forced to part ways with the UPA at the Centre. The election results are a major factor that could decide the future of the alliance that DMK has with the Congress-led UPA.

Tamil Nadu-based Vangal.com, which is an actionable insights software company, even tracked the interactions in various social networking sites and predicted that AIADMK has an edge over DMK. And the results show that the predictions were not wrong!

Maybe next time the very election itself could become a virtual space affair, isn't it?