Devise metrics for Congress footprint, says Rahul Gandhi

Congress president Rahul Gandhi has asked the party’s data analytics department to devise metrics, which will measure the consequence of the campaigns that the party’s frontal organisations and departments have undertaken in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections, in order to ensure an increased footprint of the party ahead of the polls.

Currently, apart from the individual databases of voters and workers at their disposal, the metrics of almost all frontal organisations and departments of the party is measured by the central command based on the enrollment on the data team’s platform, Shakti. The platform, primarily designed to bring in all Congress workers across states, frontals and departments in one space, has party workers and sympathisers from the Congress universe, as well as voters. 

The platform has several verticals, including those for Dalits, youth, women, etc. and workers are recognised when they bring in more workers on the platform. Gandhi has now asked all the frontal organisations, departments as well as all the committees formed for the Lok Sabha polls to ensure that all their data, including memberships, workers and even voter data, be sent to the data analytics department. 

This data will then be collated in a centralised database, so that the party can have an unified approach during voter outreach programmes. Additionally, it will also allow Gandhi to address all workers at one go.  

Sources said that Shakti still needs some firming up, with instances of paid registrations coming up. In Telangana, there was an instance of fake enrollment of workers, while in Karnataka, there were reports that ration-card holders were asked to join the platform. Additionally, the Shakti platform is built on data from the 2017 national voters list, leaving out the addition of new voters in the list in 2018.  

The directives were taken during Gandhi’s meeting with heads of frontal organisations and departments on February 13. Gandhi has also asked the leaders present to ensure that in membership drives and poll meetings, most of the efforts be directed to reaching out to people who are not aligned to the Congress. It was also decided during the meeting that party workers who carry out voter outreach programmes be trained and sensitised about every section of the society that they approach.