Selfies in poll complaint app

VIVEK CHHETRI, TT,  24 Mar 2019, Darjeeling: In this age of social media, it seems one cannot take a selfie out of a man.

The Darjeeling district administration has received 28 complaints on the mobile application cVIGIL -- of which four are selfies and one a family wefie.

Joyoshi Das Gupta, Darjeeling DM and district election officer, said: "We have received 28 complaints through cVIGIL app, which includes four selfies and one is a family photograph." cVIGIL, which stands for Vigilant Citizen, is a mobile app meant to provide stamped evidentiary proof of model code of conduct and expenditure violation.

One can easily download the application from Google play store and it allows citizens to upload live videos and live photographs. "Stored photos or videos cannot be uploaded," said an official.

This combination of timestamping (detailing the time), live photo and auto location has been designed to navigate to the right spot and take prompt action.

"The GIS-based dashboard provides strong decision tool to drop and dispose of frivolous and unrelated cases even before they are acted upon, thereby reducing the work- load of election machinery on ghost complaints," the app's description reads.

Authorities are expected to dispose such cases within one hour.

"We have formed 18 field units so that prompt action can be taken. We will increase the units if necessary," said Das Gupta.

The Election Commission is of the belief that lack of doc- umented and untampered evi- dence has often resulted in dif- ficulties to establish the verac- ity of complaints. Through this app, the commission also wants to cut down on report- ing of false and inaccurate complaints.

Most probably, the com- mission had not taken into ac- count selfie uploads.

Selfie, which is defined as a photograph that one has taken of onself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and shared via social media, is one of the most popular mode of self promotion.

Given its popularity, the Gorkhaland Territorial Ad- ministration (GTA) is coming up with 8 selfie points across Darjeeling, Kurseong, Kalimpong and Mirik, at an approximate cost of Rs 50 lakh.

Apart from selfie, the dis- trict administration has since March 10, received 6800 com- plaints of model code viola- tions, said Das Gupta.