Now you can say goodbye to long queues at polling booths the chief executive officer of MP (CEO-MP) has come out with a novel initiative, a token-based system which aims at queue-less voting – that will not require voters to stand in long queues at polling booths to exercise their franchise.
The joint CEO (Technical Operations) Vikas Narwal told Free Press “As of now, the initiative will see voters reach the respective polling booth and get selves registered with the concerned BLOs with the help of the App. The App which will be installed in the cell-phones of the BLOs will subsequently help them issue unique tokens to each of the registered voter. Instead of subsequently waiting in queue, the voters can sit and wait under the tent at the polling booth and then exercise the franchise when the security personnel deployed at the polling booth calls out their token number”.
The team led by joint CEO (technical operations) Vikas Narwal has developed an Android-based App QLESS for the booth level officers (BLOs) which paves the passage for queue-less voting – perhaps the first of its kind initiative anywhere in the country. The new system has not been made mandatory. Its implementation has been left to the discretion of the district election officer of each district, as arrangements for seating the voters under tents will have to be made at booth level for ensuring queue less voting.
The new App will not only be helpful in queue less voting, but also help the staff at each polling booth in accurately ascertaining the voting percentage as well as projecting the voting trend over the next few hours. While the app based system is new in the poll bound MP, its manual variant was used at some polling booth of Neemuch district during the 2013 assembly polls by Narwal.
Mat Pratishat mandatory for polling % update
However, QLESS is not the only App designed for innovative practices in the assembly polls in MP, as Narwal’s team has also come out with another App, Mat Pratishat (polling percentage) for providing hourly update on poll percentage at every polling booth in all districts.“Unlike QLESS, the Mat Pratishat is a mandatory application, which will be used by the presiding officer inside every booth, helping them to send to the nerve centre in Bhopal, the hourly voting numbers between 9 am and 5 pm. We’ll develop the Mat Pratishat soon portal which will enable display of hourly voting numbers on hourly basis along with projections of voting trends in coming hours,” said Narwal. With the App designed in such a manner that it works both in online and offline modes, its chances of not functioning inside the polling booth are negligible.