With the changing technology, the political parties are now trying to grab new tricks to influence the voters. As distributing the cash directly to the voters, put the political leaders or their activist in trouble, they have adopted a new formula to influence the voters. It has been found by the Election Commission that nowadays political people using an option of digital wallet to give the money to voters as it is considered to be safe. The money sent to digital wallets does not have any records, also they do not need to keep the cash at bulk; therefore political leaders and their supporters are finding it to be the best way to give the
money to voters to vote for them.
But Election commission is now keeping a keen eye on such digital transactions. Maharashtra Cyber Cell has written a letter to the State Election Commission to monitor the modus operandi of digital payment companies. State Election Commission has also
taken a serious note of this letter by cyber cell.
This time, the committee that is being formed for the elections will also have the members from banks and digital payment companies.
Digital Wallets such as Paytm, Phonepay, FreeCharge, Citruspay, JioMoney, Mobikwik, PayUMoney, Payment, OlaMoney, HDFC Pay Zap, Airtel Money, is widely traded for many financial transactions. According to state election commission commissioner J.S. Saharia, the transactions from such digital wallets will be tracked by the commission. The Commission has also given instructions to all district level officers to track such details. Therefore, it will be possible to find out the various types of tricks being used for the
election campaign.
On the backdrop of the Karnataka elections, the Maharashtra Cyber Cell has alerted the Maharashtra State Election Commission for the misuse of digital payments. Cyber branch has suggested that State Election Commission should prepare a policy regarding
the use of digital wallet. Cyber Cell Police Superintendent Balasingh Rajput said that the Commission has also shown positive response to the suggestions made by them.
Social Media on Scan
There have been suggestions from many NGOs and public representatives about the misuse of social media and the huge expenditure for the publicity on social media. Therefore, the experts in Social Media field will also be included in the Committee formed for elections.
J.S. Sahariya, Commissioner, State Election Commission
The suggestions of Maharashtra cyber cell have been taken into consideration. Certain efforts will be made to bring the quality of elections to both the systems.
Modus operandi for Election campaign
Local party workers take the photograph of the voter’s identity card and transfer the money to voters through digital wallet. As a proof of meeting the voter, he takes the selfie with the voter and shows it to his seniors in the party.