Panaji: It’s late at night and telephone buzzing.
Callers, a young woman, calmly asked about voting preferences, her voice disarmed disarming the person into leaking the information intended to be personal and confidential.
But if you think it’s a phishing call to steal your money, you’re wrong.
In a multi-click battle for 2022 assembly selection, political parties attract all stops to get a campaign strategy correctly.
With more than the pride at stake, some have even repeatedly in heavyweight poll strategies but their tactics, especially the survey to measure voter sentiments, follow the thin lines between following the representation of people’s actions and unethical practices.
Questions flow easily.
“If you don’t mind, may I ask which party you choose in the last election?” “Should the next minister’s head come from Bhandari Samaj? …
Which party will you choose in the upcoming election and why? …
Are you satisfied with MLA’s current performance?” Given the average trend of Goan towards political banter, information flows easily.
After trust is obtained, the question shifts to the caste.
“Are you a Brahmana, Maratha or from Bhandari Samaj?” The caller identified himself as a student of “Delhi School of Politics”, and said this survey was part of an ongoing project.
On another occasion, the caller was a student from the Department of Political Science Damodar College or even a journalist conducted a survey of “political scenarios” in Goa.
None of this is true.
It’s not always that the survey runs according to the script.
“He asked if I was Brahmana or Maratha.
When asked about the relevance of caste, he said he asked a question from the form.
When I said I was an Indian, he concluded the survey,” said lawyer and compere Akshata Puranik-Bhat, who received a call like that a few days ago.
Many of the callers sound like fresh young people from college and rented by political parties or election strategists to compile data on voters and cave voting patterns.
The Supreme Court has repeatedly emphasized that the confidentiality of voting is important.
Section 94 of the representation of the laws of people, 1951 made it very clear that each voter is expected to maintain the confidentiality of voting.
Everyone who violates confidentiality, will be ordered for violations below Section 128 Representation of Law People, 1951.
“There are no witnesses or other people who are required to declare to whom he has chosen the election,” the action.
“Confidentiality is the confidentiality of a ballot but it does not prevent you from making your voice transparent if you feel so.
There is no coercion.
Is for people to maintain their privacy,” said the former Commissioner of the Election of State (SEC) Prabhakar Kakble.
The emergence of election strategists and political consultants seem to have changed the nature of the cave election campaign.
Prashant Kishor and his Indian political action committee (I-PAC) has entered the cave in a large way and is the spearhead of the Trinamool Congress campaign for the election of the Goa Assembly.
Apart from employees I-PAC 300-strange camping in the state, Kishor and his team have also employed several local youth as part of a scholarship program.
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has also employed local youth as a volunteer to help in the campaign and collect data about voters.
Information, including the telephone number of beneficiaries of government schemes and government staff, has been obtained and used by the “call center” to the villages of profiles, identifying the political tendency of home and caste voters.
“Plus technology competition has made elections into a competitive business.
There are corporations reaching voters.
So voters are seen as consumers and not as citizens,” Kakble said.
No one is spared in this political dragnet, with everyone from a politically active population and the influential people for retired teachers and domestic helpers get a call, often more than one.
Even senior election officials are not spared.