Ranchi, Feb. 7: The BJP, after its hi-tech campaigning flopped in the Lok Sabha elections, has now fallen back on the ?conventional? exercise ? door-to-door campaigning.

Despite its hi-tech campaign in the parliamentary elections, the BJP managed to win just one out of the 14 seats. The campaigning then included glow sign boards, SMS on mobile phones and broadcast of a recorded message by Atal Bihari Vajpayee on the cellphones.

?Namashkar, main Atal Bihari Vajpayee bol raha hoon. Desh ki samvridhdhike liye Bharatiya Janata Party ko vote dijiye (Namashkar, this is Atal Bihari Vajpayee. For a prosperous India, vote for the BJP),? said the recorded message that virtually every cellphone subscriber received during the Lok Sabha elections.

However, this elections, the party has shunned all such state-of-the-art forms and has taken refuge in the conventional forms. Nearly all the star campaigners for the ruling party are having a tough time in Jharkhand as they are being made to go on a mass contact programme with the voters. Even stalwarts like Yashwant Sinha, who rarely stepped down out of his four-wheeler during his Lok Sabha campaign, could now be seen undertaking ?padyatras? for several kilometres. Even the likes of Rajnath Singh and other senior leaders have been asked to visit the remote villages to mobilise support in the rural areas.

?Had the party realised this during the Lok Sabha poll, things would have been different for us. We would certainly have bagged many other seats through these mass contact programmes. The poll management by private event managers cost us dearly as the party and leaders remained out of the reach of the common man,? admitted a senior state leader of the party.

The task has become even tougher for the candidates who have been asked to launch a door-to-door campaign to meet the voters and answer their queries in their constituencies. ?Democracy is a government of the people, by the people and for the people. If it goes far away from the people, the consequences come in the form of humiliation during election. We have the example of the Lok Sabha before us,? another leader said.

Sources in the BJP said, the party has spent equal amount of money for posters and banners as well as on mass contact programmes.

Right from chief minister Arjun Munda and former chief minister Babulal Marandi to the state party president Raghubar Das, the entire BJP leadership is spending sleepless nights after resorting to the conventional method of canvassing. ?After being in the government for many years, some of our leaders were habituated to comforts. Now with the party whip, they are really working hard,? said a party worker at the state party headquarters in a lighter vein.