Websites named after the Congress’s donation drive to mark its 138th anniversary have been redirecting users to the donation page of the BJP and the larger Hindutva online network, in what is being seen as an example of the ruling ecosystem’s political fleet-footedness.

The Congress formally launched its “Donate for Desh” campaign on Monday, encouraging supporters to contribute to the party sums divisible by both 138 and 10, such as Rs 138, Rs 1,380 and so on.

The crowdfunding website is the Congress’s donation portal that has the
addresses donateinc.in and donateinc.net

However, multiple unidentified social media handles have shared the web addresses donatefordesh.org and donatefordesh.com. These lead users to donation pages of the BJP and OpIndia, respectively. Donatefordesh. in leads to JNU professor Anand Ranganathan’s tweet of his book Hindus in Hindu Rashtra.

donatefordesh.org leads to BJP's donation page. Sourced by The Telegraph

The websites clearly identify themselves as linked to the BJP, OpIndia, and Ranganathan’s Twitter page. They do not mention the Congress or its campaign.

BJP IT head Amit Malviya tweeted, in a veiled reference to a Congress spokesperson: “Please don’t blame Shrieking Jane for the fiasco of Congress’s ‘Donate for Desh’ fraud. She has to not only appear less intelligent than Rahul Gandhi but also prove it. Let alone domains, the Congress didn’t even block SM accounts. Check out @donatefordesh, for instance. And they want to run the country.”

The X handle he named has retweeted the Congress but gives the link that leads to OpIndia.

Commercial establishments normally buy the domains of websites with similar-sounding names to prevent any infringement of their brand.

donatefordesh.com leads to OpIndia's donation page. Sourced by The Telegraph

X user Sandeep Manudhane tweeted: “The INC’s ‘Donate for Desh’ disaster clearly illustrates 3 things. 1. Extremely shallow planning by INC team 2. Zero supervision by Top leadership 3.Lack of practical knowledge. All are ominous signs. If your biggest crowdfunding programme can be hijacked in a day by cunning opponents, speaks volumes for you, not the opponents. Welcome to realpolitik of today. donatefordesh top web domains(com/in/org) booked by BJP and redirected to their own funding pages.”

It is common practice for commercial entities to register domain names and social media handles of possible variations of their brand names and trademarks to prevent misuse or infringement.

The Congress disagreed that this had affected them.

“We are getting 100 transactions a minute on our donation link. At the end of the day, we are the ones laughing all the way to the bank,” All India Professionals’ Congress chairman Praveen Chakravarty told The Telegraph.

“I am appalled at the idiocy. Donate for Desh is a campaign. We gave our link to donate on. We launch different campaigns. Are we supposed to register all possible website names for these campaigns?... I am glad that the BJP is flustered, and has spent money to create this tamasha which is actually promoting our campaign.”