March 13, 2021: As the election season is on, the discussions around the political party targeting votes and the candidates is at the peak. However, there is hardly anyone who understands the voter and his/her concerns. To help the voters understand the elections better and to provide them with relevant information and analysis on the political parties, candidates, performance etc.
BolSubol has launched an online application that would empower the voters. The App launched by Demokratika has the strength to communicate with any candidate from the comfort of home. BolSubol is a non-partisan mobile app platform that combines verifiable trustworthy data & microblogging capabilities. The platform will be useful for electors, political parties and people interested in their country’s economic growth & political choices make fact-based decisions about voting.
The Bolsubol app can help a user understand many seemingly confusing results. One example is that how did BJP win more seats in 2019 when their vote share went down compared to 2019? One look at the visualization in the app will show that there was voter consolidation in the Barak Valley. Barak Valley has a large number of Bengali Hindu & their consolidation helped BJP win two additional seats compared to 2014.
Further in its analysis, the app provides state wise data which showcases that most younger voters who are between 18 and 40 years depend on Digital Media (News channels on Mobile, News Apps & Election Apps) for information regarding elections. Television is not the biggest source of news anymore. Instead, mobile based channels, social media networks such as YouTube, Twitter, Facebook are the key sources of news. Another interesting fact that came across was many younger voters want applications that are visually appealing, educated and understand the depth of their mandates. They want applications with lot of data so that they can analyze by themselves.
The App has all the economic and political information about all the constituencies in India for over 60 years on an average. Says Sheshgiri, the Director of Demokratika, “The App is all about voter empowerment. Government and politics impact every aspect of our lives. Having knowledge of politics, changes in economic and social conditions helps make us an informed voter. A combination of governance data and engagement is needed to make the correct political choices in a democracy. Unfortunately, most of the digital platforms available the world over are social networking applications. These do not help in meaningful discussions or making fact-based decisions. An informed voter is an empowered voter.”
Continues Ritesh Verma, Director, Demokratika, “The noise levels in Assam, Kerala, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal are to be heard to be believed. Except the election commission’s efforts, not much seems to be done by political parties involved on voter empowerment. Besides ‘I am better than my rival’, there is very little that the political parties have to offer. It gets even more serious when there are different political parties at the State and the Centre.”
The BolSubol App, on a voters’ smartphone, will enable to get historical, economic, demographic, social and electoral data of the constituency, it will also provide news & views and also key government schemes and focus actions. Adds Sheshgiri, for the first time, the world witnesses a powerful microblogging tool at the exclusive service of the Indian voter. Our microblogging will have the combined strengths of Twitter, Reddit andInstagram, for the benefit of the voter. While most of the features (including the download) are free, there are some features kept in the paid section.
There is also an Election Knowledge Game that users can play. This game allows prediction of winners and projection of seats for each party in the various elections. Past election data is used to simulate probabilities.