Columbia varsity alumnus sets up social networking site to connect voters with their political leaders.
Now instead of cribbing about bad roads, improper sanitation or power shortage in your area, you can question your leaders on live chat round the clock.
Thirty four-year old Vikram Nalagampalli (pictured), a Bangalorean and Columbia University alumnus, returned to the country to set up a social networking website, Voterite, which connects voters to their political leaders as well as contesting candidates online.
“This is probably the best chance where close to 12 crore young people will be eligible to vote for the first time in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections,” Nalagampalli told dna. “The primary function of the website is to engage and influence the youth to pick the right leaders,” he added.
In the first-of-its-kind attempt, the website gives voters a chance to not only post their complaints and suggestions but also campaign for their favorite party.
“The beauty of Voterite is to see how many of these voters can be converted into campaigners. If they start becoming campaigners, convey the message, the influence is proven again and again,” said Nalagampalli. “We have asked the political leaders to give us a three-minute video as to why youth should vote for them,” he added.
The site has close to 40,000 profiles right now of people who have either contested elections in the past or are contesting now. Though Nalagampalli did not give the exact number of candidates who have sent their videos, he said the Aam Admi Party has been very active around the concept. AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal is among the leaders who have sent them their videos.
The website will be engaging people in a two way communication. This is something that has been missing in the Indian politics. “It’s always been the candidate propagating his message where there is no platform for the voter to interact with this person.”
Acording to the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), Mumbai with 12 million internet users is the top most city in terms of internet penetration, followed by Delhi with 8.1 million users and Hyderabad with 4.7 million users. Chennai with 4.5 million internet users and Kolkata with 4.4 million internet users are fourth and fifth respectively.
Another report of Google says social media can have an impact on around 30% seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
IAMAI also says that social media is likely to influence 160 of 543 parliamentary constituencies. It claims that four out of every 10 urban voters in India are online.
Voterite has conducted internet study with social networking experts and has concluded that online forum for informed voting can swing between 5,000 to 10,000 undecided voters, across 220 urban and semi-urban parliamentary constituencies across the country for the Lok Sabha elections.
Currently, Voterite has over 600 subscribers and they are still in talks with the candidates for information about each one of them.
However, it also collates information about candidates from the Election Commission and various sites like knowYourNeta.
All the information about the candidates that goes out on the site is verified by its internal content team who make sure the information is accurate and crisp.
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