You don’t need to go out of your way to become a responsible citizen of the country; just a little effort is enough to make a difference. Meet 36-year-old Ajay Kumar Chaudhari, a common man whose prompt actions on the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) cVigil App has led to unearthing of at least four Model Code of Conduct (MCC) violations in less than a fortnight.
Chaudhari has exposed the highest number of MCC violations through the cVigil App in Jharkhand since it was launched on March 10 here. He lodged a total of six complaints on the App and four of them were found to be correct, the ECI said.
“Whenever I saw posters of political leaders pasted on a government building or electric polls, I clicked a picture and uploaded on the App. I see it as my responsibility as a citizen to highlight such violations of the MCC,” said Chaudhari, who runs a Common Service Centre (CSC) in Satbarwa block of Palamu district.
Chaudhari is already leading the list of successful complainants on the cVigil App and is not willing to look back from here.
“I will find more cases of MCC violation and report to the ECI. Several cases of MCC violations go unreported in Palamu. With the access to the App, it is now possible to report them and expect prompt actions from the ECI,” he said.
cVigil, which stands for citizen’s vigil, was first used during the Assembly Elections in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Telangana and Mizoram in 2018. It is a platform that allows commoners to lodge complaints related to MCC violations. Commoners can download the app from Google Play Store and Apple Store. Through this app, one can send video recordings or pictures as evidence for their complaint. The ECI claims that all complaints are to be addressed within 100 minutes.
According to figures with the ECI, a total of 197 complaints have been lodged through the cVigil App in Jharkhand so far. Out of them only 54 were found correct.
Besides Chaudhari, Tirth Nath Akash of Bokaro and Sanjay Kumar of Ranchi successfully lodged three complaints each which were found true.
Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) L Khiangte has invited all citizens of the state to actively participate in the process and highlight MCC violations through the cVigil App.
The ECI also conducted several training sessions for the use of cVigil App across the State.