NEW DELHI, March 1: The vote counting exercise for the 12th Lok Sabha which begins on Monday may not be such a nightmare for media analysts and psephologists thanks to new user-friendly election software.The touch of a button or a click of the mouse or even a finger touch on the screen can bring all the information they need about elections, past or present on their desktops. An election kiosk installed in their office provides all the information about any of the 543 constituencies with political swings and trends graphically represented of Lok Sabha polls since 1977.
"The kiosk includes a detailed political map of the country with information pertaining to the electorate, candidates, their electoral standing of each parliamentary seat being incorporated," says V Krishnamoorthy, a creator of such an election kiosk.
The touchscreen facility also enables the user to obtain information `by just a touch of his finger'. The biggest advantage of such digital cartographic database is that it can not onlyhelp create poll related maps for elections that have taken place but can also add on data for the forthcoming polls, Manoshi Lahiri, who has conceptualised a software, Pollmap 2.0, providing such information said.
ML Infomap, the firm that developed and markets Pollmap 2.0, Atul Kapur said, "Sifting through voluminous data to obtain past poll swings and party performances has now become a thing of the past. With software like ours, you can even update information as results start pouring in for the 12th Lok Sabha."
Krishnamoorthy cites the example of Mulayam Singh Yadav's constituency, Sambhal, information regarding which can be obtained by just clicking on it on the political map of the country.
"Information pertaining to the votes polled, male/female ratio, past party positions and percentage of margin between the winning candidate and other contestants can help in constituency analysis of Sambhal and even help Yadav himself in forecasting the prospective trend," he said.
However, it is not justpast and updated information about constituencies that is incorporated but the software can also enlist them separately on the basis of women candidates and on their falling under the `reserved' tag.Such constituencies can be highlighted on a map by different colours, Lahiri said.
"The colours are synonymous with each party's flag, making it easier to identify those seats held by any particular political party during previous elections," Lahiri said. Pollmap 2.0 also gives the status of the second and third party candidates in each constituency and if seen on a national level this `indicates the strengths and weaknesses of political parties.'
If a political party wants to concentrate more on certain parliamentary seats it had finished second last time, then all the information it needs to know about them is available, enabling them to formulate future poll strategies, Lahiri said. But priced in the range of Rs 52,000 to rs 6 lakh, these cartographic databases are "out of the reach of not just individualsbut also media centres."
However, Krishnamoorthy defends the price tag and says that the package just doesn't include the relevant software but "also the hardware so that users not familiar with computer applications get what they want without any difficulty."
"They are not just for media analysts but also for political parties who can easily formulate poll strategies apart from identifying their weaknesses as also obtain all the data," Lahiri said.
So next election time if Sharad Yadav wants to contest from a relatively `safe seat' he needn't wait for his party's think tank for their nod but can get an answer by just a click of the mouse.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
