The official website of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – http://www.bjp.org/– was taken down after it was allegedly hacked on Tuesday morning, 5 March. No hacker group has claimed responsibility for it yet.
The website had not been restored even hours after the alleged hacking (four hours as of 3:45 pm, Tuesday).
It remains offline with this message from the admin which reads: “We’ll be back soon! Sorry for the inconvenience but we’re performing some maintenance at the moment. We’ll be back online shortly!”
The website admin has, however, since added a logo of the party with the tagline ‘The Party With A Difference’ above the message.
Before the admin’s message was added, following the attack, the website had initially showed ‘Error 522’.
Several screenshots of the hacked page appeared on Twitter. An abusive message on top of the page implied ‘the party is fooling the Indian citizens’.
That was followed by a GIF of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. There was also a YouTube link to Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody – Muppets version.
‘If Website Can Be Hacked, Why Not EVMs?’
From asking how will the BJP handle the nation when they cannot handle their website to questioning why the EVMs cannot be hacked if the party’s website can be, Twitter erupted with reactions after the incident.
BJP Alleges Opposition’s Role in Hacking
Speaking to The Print, Shyam Jaju, who heads the BJP’s social media committee, reportedly indicated Opposition’s role in hacking.
“We have been digitally way ahead of our competitors and rivals. It has to be someone who benefits from hacking ahead of polls,” Jaju told the online portal.
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