Encouraging the involvement of public participation in a huge number for countering the cases of Model Code of Conduct (MCC) violations, the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) cVigil App (Vigilant Citizens Mobile Application) service has become a popular tool among the public while aiding the administrators to create a fast track complaint reception and redressal system.
An open platform for the public to lodge complaints highlighting MCC violations has gained tremendous response of the citizens residing in the State Capital. Ever since the enforcement of MCC after the announcement of general election dates -2019 on March 10 around 43 cases of MCC violation have been registered through mobile Application here.
The latest data of cVigil mobile App with the Ranchi District Administration suggested that a total of 43 complaints have been registered with District Contact Centres (DCC). Further the bifurcation of data suggested that overall 13 complaint cases are found to be correct by the Returning Officer (RO) while 30 complaints were dropped as it does not contravene any MCC norms.
“The public of Capital City is aptly utilising the platform – mobile App. Following the rules, all the complaint cases have been disposed off. No case is pending at DCC or is under investigation. Decisions for all the complaints have been given,” said District Officer (PR), Prabhat Shankar.
Ranchi district has the second highest number of voters after Palamau. As per the record, there are 2125782 electors in Ranchi constituency as on February 6, 2019. “Mostly, complaints about illegal political posters, hoardings were registered through the mobile Application from March 10 to March 20,” added Shankar while disclosing the nature of complaints cases registered with the district administration through cVigil Application.
The Ranchi district administration has been conducting regular training sessions for the use of cVigil App prominently during the election. The public can download the App from Google Play Store. Through this App, one can send a short video recording (maximum of two minutes) or pictures (at least two) as a supporting document for their complaint. Interestingly, all complaints are resolved within 100 minutes, after verifying the facts.
The dedicated mobile Application designed for reporting violations from the date of notifications for bye-election, assembly, parliamentary elections received a fairly well response in the five states that went to polls. cVigil was first used during the Assembly Polls in Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Mizoram in 2018.