A Congress call centre at Bangalore that answers queries regarding the party and its leaders and works 9 am to 7 pm has been in operation for nearly a month now. “This idea was introduced for the first time in the country and the national unit wants to introduce this all over the country,” Byregowda added.

According to Ananth Kumar the electronic mode of campaigning will result in an environment friendly, litter-free, clean campaign.

The Election Commission has clarified that short text messaging service campaigns will be considered as election expenditure and audited to the accounts of the candidates fielded by a political party by equal portioning. The SMS services will also have to be utilised during the stipulated campaign hours of 7 am to 10 pm, Chief Electoral Officer for Karnataka M N Vidyashankar said.