Tech-savvy Indoreans track poll results on WhatsApp

For the first time in the history of Indore civic polls, a majority of tech-savvy voters were glued to their mobile phones, instead of their laptops or television sets, to keep track of the poll results which were out on Wednesday.

For the first time in the history of Indore civic polls, a majority of tech-savvy voters were glued to their mobile phones, instead of their laptops or television sets, to keep track of the poll results which were out on Wednesday.

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Poll-related information was just a click or touch away for smartphone users, thanks to a WhatsApp quick response system developed by Ratlam-based technocrat Pratik Chourdia and three of his friends.

Chourdia, who also runs an e-magazine on cricket, says a voter first needs to message the ward number to 9898825728 through the instant messaging service Whatsapp.

According to Chourida, the system would then display information such as three prominent candidates from the ward, the winning party and the candidate, and the votes won by the prominent candidates.

On Wednesday, several supporters and journalists, apart from voters, were using the system to access poll-related information.

"This system is very effective. I can get the results by just keying in the ward number," says Shabbir Ahmed, a resident of Chandan Nagar.

Some officials of the police department and supporters of a few candidates were also standing outside the counting centres and making use of this one-of-a-kind service.

"This set-up is good. I received each and every poll update through this system only," says SK Mishra, an Indore-based traffic policeman on election duty.

Following the success of the WhatsApp quick response system, Chourdia is planning to introduce this novelty during the upcoming Delhi assembly polls.

"The pilot project worked well during the Indore civic polls. Our aim is to make it more effective and efficient," says Chourdia.

He further says that he has been working on this project for the last six months. "A team of three members have been developing this system. We feed data related to all the 85 wards manually. As soon as a person keys in the ward number, information related to that ward is automatically displayed," he adds.