It is vital for a party to know the demographic profile of the voters. Keeping this in view, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is using a software that segregates the voters on the basis of their age groups. With the data on the age profile available, the party hopes to be better prepared with the issues that it needs to take up. Data of party workers is also being maintained. The name of the workers, their booths and other such details are available at the click of the mouse.

Harmohan Dhawan, Bahujan Samaj Party convenor and its Lok Sabha candidate from Chandigarh, says the party uses a special software to maintain a record of the new workers recruited throughout the year. More than 32,000 workers were sent personal letters, inviting them for a rally last month. The letters had names, addresses as well as booth number of the workers. The task was made possible with the help of the software.

Residents can also now check out the profile of the candidates on the websites of the parties. While National Democratic Alliance (NDA) candidate Satya Pal Jain already has a website for the last few years, the Congress, too, is in process of preparing one for its candidate, Union Minister of State for Finance Pawan Kumar Bansal.

With elections in the city scheduled in the last phase, the parties will have to sustain their campaigns for more than two months. To give constant reminders about the merits of the candidates, SMS comes handy to connect to the masses. Residents are flooded with messages from both the BJP and the Congress.

Says Congress leader Pardeep Chhabra: “We have tied up with companies and sent hundreds of messages. It is an instant way of getting in touch with a large number of people.”