CHANDIGARH: Ahead of the 2027 Punjab Assembly elections, a citizen-led digital platform, 'Opinion of Punjab', has been launched to enable people to track the performance of their elected representatives and raise issues affecting their communities.
The platform will allow citizens to see how many questions their MLA has asked in the state Assembly over the past four-and-a-half years and how often the legislator has raised issues concerning the constituency on the floor of the House. It also features an online Atlas through which users can view the issues and questions raised by people across Punjab's constituencies.
Described as a citizen-centric, digital, not-for-profit initiative, 'Opinion of Punjab' aims to enable ordinary citizens to identify and record local issues and priorities at the village, municipal ward and Assembly constituency levels. These issues are intended to be consolidated into a collective "people's manifesto".
The platform covers more than 13,000 villages, around 2,100 municipal wards, all 117 Assembly constituencies and 23 districts. Citizens can raise, view and contribute to issues at the village, ward, constituency, district, parliamentary constituency and state levels.
A key feature is the Elected Representative Tracker, which is designed to bring together available information on the work, participation, public interventions and accountability of Punjab's elected representatives. The first phase covers the state's 117 MLAs, 13 Lok Sabha MPs and seven Rajya Sabha MPs.
The platform also features Speak for Punjab, through which citizens can raise issues and priorities at different levels. Users can post issues anonymously or with their verified name and phone number.
Another feature, Stand for Punjab, allows prospective electoral representatives to introduce themselves and connect with citizens across the state's 117 Assembly constituencies. According to the platform's founder, former AAP and Congress leader Himanshu Pathak, more than 1,950 people have registered under the initiative so far.
The Atlas provides maps of all 23 districts and 117 Assembly constituencies and allows users to see the types of issues and voices being raised in each constituency. It can also drill down from the state level to individual villages.
Pathak said the platform had also calculated what it calls the "cost per question" for all 117 MLAs. According to him, the figure is calculated by dividing an MLA's monthly basic pay, dearness allowance and other allowances by the number of questions asked in the Assembly. He said the calculated cost ranged from around Rs 49,000 to Rs 1.15 crore.
The platform has also developed an "accountability score" for legislators, based on parameters including questions raised in Assembly sessions, attendance, active participation, cost per question and public opinion. Pathak said legislators had been assigned scores out of 100 based on these parameters.
The platform's second phase will extend tracking to 13,236 sarpanches, 2,182 municipal councillors, 152 Block Samiti members and 347 Zila Parishad zones, according to Pathak.
"The first phase is already on the ground, where new people who look at politics and its direction in a new way are being identified across 117 Assembly seats and 13,252 villages," Pathak said.
He said the initiative was intended to encourage greater citizen participation in public affairs.
"Punjab's agenda should be set by Punjab's people, village by village, ward by ward, constituency by constituency. This platform is an effort to make that participation continuous, visible and meaningful," he said.
Pathak said the broader objective was to create a bottom-up public agenda "by the people and for the people", allowing citizens to identify developmental, economic, civic and growth priorities and contribute to public discourse.
"Democracy needs a mechanism through which people are continuously heard, not only at the time of elections. 'Opinion of Punjab' has been created to provide that continuous space, an agenda by the people and for the people," he said.
