Before civic polls, learn about candidates on your mobiles

If you were thinking of not voting for the February 16 civic polls because you don’t know anything about candidates in your area, that’s no longer an excuse. Every candidate’s agenda will be available on your mobile phone.

Mumbaivotes.com, an independent web portal, in collaboration with the NGO, Association for Democratic Reforms, is creating Mumbai’s first call-in service, where citizens can call a number and get information about candidates from their area.

The project, called the National Election Watch, will also offer an SMS service, where voters can message ward numbers and get information about each candidate, including background, assets and liabilities and criminal record.

The portal will announce the phone numbers for these services within a week. “Not everyone can access the Internet to look up candidates. With this, you know what your candidate has in store for your ward in three minutes, while you are travelling in a local train,” said Vivek Gilani, founder, Mumbaivotes.com.