IT plays a major role in Gujarat elections

Binu Alex

AHMEDABAD: ‘v r gng 2 win with gr8 mrgn. Pls vote 4 us". These types of unsolicited messages irritate a majority of youth and elders alike. These messages are sms’ed by political parties in Gujarat in the ensuing elections on December 12. This is perhaps the first election, since the IT advent where parties decided to field canvassing campaigners as per the computer generated results of each area.

For instance a highly sophisticated Arun Jaitley or SM Krishna would not be canvassing in rural and tribal areas where as people like Laloo Prasad Yadav would mainly visit these areas. This strategy of selecting campaigners is being done through voter database, which differentiate between castes, genders, religion and regional identity.

"We have to be different from the previous elections. It is the information technology devices that help us in this strategy," Tom Vadakkan, media cell in-charge, AICC told CNS.

The BJP party central office in Ahmedabad gives a look of a high profile infotech company. With a large number of desktops to help the journalists on deciding constituency and candidate profile, there are laptops, which give you information on the go.



The data of each constituency is fed into the system. Then the information of each candidate and each campaigner is also fed. Random selection is done to decide which campaigner canvasses where and depending upon the distance of each meeting and the capacity to address the number of meetings, each day’s strategy is drawn.

New media consultants have come to the scene with strategies like this to woo not the voters, but the parties. With a large database of journalists, they use the mass mailing system to inform the journalists about the day’s events. This data is again fed into the system to generate results where transportation can be minimized by having two or more scribes in one tour.

The firebrand speeches are recorded and then multimedia presentations are made to exhibit in those places where the high profile leaders could not visit. But the BJP, which also has set up the largest IP based network in Asia, GSWAN, could not use it to the optimum use when it was in power, to harness the Information Technology potential in the state. Since a majority of the population and also the employees themselves do not know the infrastructure Gujarat has in this field, the government in the saddle next year may also fail project the state in the path of development and technological advancement.