The Election Commission of India has launched Cvigil mobile application for citizens to report any violation of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) during elections known as ‘cVIGIL’, which stands for “citizens’ vigil”, was tested on a pilot basis during the polls in Karnataka’s Bengaluru.
The election commission has now decided to extend the service during the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. "cVigil, a citizen app, will help the public reach out to Election Commission on any malpractices” announced Sunil Arora, the Chief Election Commissioner, during the press conference.
By using this app, citizens can immediately report on incidents of misconduct within minutes of having witnessed them and without having to rush to the office of the returning officer to lodge a complaint.
The vigilant citizen has to click a picture or record a video of up to two minutes’ duration of the scene of violations of the model code. The photo or video is to be uploaded on the app. The automated location mapping will be done by the app using the Geographic Information System. After its successful submission through the app, the vigilant citizen gets a Unique ID to track and receive the follow-up updates on her or his mobile. A citizen can report many incidents in this manner and will get a unique id for each report for follow up updates. The identity of the complainant will be kept confidential.
The app has inbuilt features to prevent its misuse. It will receive complaints only about the Model Code of Conduct violations. The user will get 5 minutes to report an incident after having clicked a picture or a video. To prevent any misuse, the app will not allow uploading of the pre-recorded or old images and videos.
Lok Sabha 2019 elections start from April 11 and polling will be held in seven phases, says Election Commission. Code of Conduct for parties kicks in from today and there are close to 90 crore eligible voters. Date of counting will be on May 23.
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