President poll: Mamata says thank you for overwhelming response to appeal

Kolkata: Appreciating an 'overwhelming' response to her Facebook appeal for supporting former President APJ Abdul Kalam in the Presidential election, Mamata Banerjee on Sunday in another post expressed her thanks. "Thank you all for your overwhelming response, in such a short span of time, for this great cause of nation... I am sure this united voice will take the issue to the next level", the West Bengal chief minister wrote.

The newest high-value member of the popular social networking website, regretted the erosion of ethics and principles in politics and said public interest had been compromised through the use of money, power and scams. "It is most unfortunate that politics in our great nation has become murky and values, public interest have been compromised through the use of money, power and scams", she wrote in her official Facebook page.

"Ethical and principled politics has eroded today - this decay has to be reversed at all costs to return to the great traditions of this country".

The Trinamool Congress chief has appealed for supporting former President APJ Abdul Kalam in the Presidential elections.

She also appealed all Indian citizens to raise their voice and be counted to fight against corruption, back-room deal making, Machiavellian manipulations and machinations. "We should raise our voices and stand by principles - conviction, values and integrity", Banerjee said.

Although known to be tech-savvy, Banerjee had so far stayed away from personally participating in social networking websites despite having courted controversies for being 'intolerant' of unsavoury comments and cartoons about her.

A source close to her said that she reads tweets regularly and is quite conversant with the online medium. "This is an age of 360 degree communication where we want to use all channels of communication to spread our party's messages. We not only tolerate the social media, we also cherish it", a party spokesperson said.

Ahead of last year's Assembly elections, Trinamool had roped in Hotmail co-founder and IT wizard Sabeer Bhatia to help the party campaign better in the cyber world.

Since then the party has an official Facebook account and a regularly updated website. Trinamool s cyber team head and MP Derek O'Brien, who has more than 78,000 followers on Twitter often uses his tweet to clarify the party s stand on various issues.

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