Kalmadi’s website down since he went out of action

While Kalmadi’s aides and public relations officers claim to be unaware of the reasons why the website is down,some speculate it could be because of ‘unwanted’ posts on the website after Kalmadi’s arrest on April 24 following his alleged involvement in the CWG scam.

“Pune is known as an Information Technology city,with a large chunk of its population being net-savvy. Thus,a hi-tech campaign using new technology has been launched to reach out to most of the voters,” Kalmadi was quoted as saying while launching the website on April 7,2009. He had also opened a blog and a twitter account. The blog was never accessed after his election win.

The website earlier hosted Kalmadi’s biodata,photographs of Sonia Gandhi,Rahul Gandhi and Manmohan Singh,his ‘Vision 2020’ for Pune,election manifesto,testimonials,an interactive window for voters besides other features. Today,the webpage has links to tourism packages,property websites and job portals. “We have no clue who manages his website. Also,there has been no activity since April 24,” said Praveen Walimbe,who has been handling Kalmadi’s publicity.

A senior Congress official who is close to Kalmadi said,“The website might have been deliberately taken off given that people posted remarks which might have caused trouble.”

The website was designed by city-based Dimakh Consultants,who have also designed the websites for CYG 2008. “The domain name expired about four months ago and no one approached us to renew it,” said Dimakh Sahasrabuddhe,CEO Dimakh Consultants. Commenting on the links that now appear on the website,he said,“It happens by default if the domain name expires.”