COIMBATORE: With political parties having intensified preparations in the run-up to the Assembly election, the AIADMK has adopted a multi-feature digital platform for election work in all constituencies across the state.
The ‘Booth Sevai’ app, equipped with several election management features that can be used by booth agents has been launched in constituencies in Coimbatore and Tiruppur districts and will be rolled out in other districts too, said party sources, but refused to provide a time-frame.
According to AIADMK sources, the objective is to gauge voter preferences at the booth level. An AIADMK booth agent in Coimbatore, on condition of anonymity, told TNIE that usernames and passwords were issued to booth agents. “The application has a ‘Voters in Family Group’ feature that allows booth agents to group voters who are listed separately in the electoral roll into families within each booth. Once grouped, details such as the family head, street, house number and total number of members are recorded, and the voters are marked as a family in the application,” he said.
“The application also has an ‘Edit Family Group’ option. In addition to family group details, it includes a voting preference field that displays the names of all major political parties. Booth agents can mark the voting preference of each individual added to the ‘Voters in Family Group’ feature.
For example, in a family of four, if the family head supports the DMK, the agent marks DMK in the app; if the homemaker supports the AIADMK, that preference is marked accordingly. If the voting preference of a new voter is unclear, the agent gathers information from people close to them. If the preference cannot be determined, the agent marks ‘undecided’, and if a voter is not interested or opts for NOTA, it is marked as ‘neutral’,” he said.
A top functionary of the AIADMK IT wing, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the party has shifted its election work from manual processes to a digital platform, whereas survey work was carried out manually during the last Lok Sabha election.
He pointed out that, for the first time, booth slips will be generated through the app and printed for voters, with mini printers being provided to booth agents for this purpose.