Indian General Election 2019: How Big Data Is Influencing Voters’ Psychology

At times it really gets hard to understand which leader is good for us and we wish that we could read their and pattern. But what if we say leaders' have access to your mind and they know what you want? Surprisingly, it is true. This election has more to do with brain-game than just playing politics.

While surfing over the net or your mobile apps, you must have noticed that there is certain kind of videos that appear on your window. Also, certain posts and ads pop up in your window related to the election regarding election candidates in your vicinity.

While going through news report you might have come across political theme rapping numbers by Gully Boy on Kolkata's hip hop scene. But do you know that West Bengal is amongst the largest consumers of political videos in India?

Well, the reason behind this is that a particular kind of online behavior creates a demand for some specific videos which are trending. And over that, if politicians have access to this data then they probably know how to reach the hearts of Bengalis.

Pratham Mittal of Neta app, quoting McKinsey report says, "An analysis shows around 30% of the total voters can be influenced with the use of social media in these elections. Out of 90 crore people, 54 crores have WhatsApp and Facebook installed in their handset who fall under the category of unique users."

This election may or may not decide the bright political future of India but it is surely making sense in the usage of technology driving the nation's actions. The Lok Sabha election of 2019 is India's big data election running on the consortium of algorithms, artificial intelligence, and analytics. Not being the visible part of the election, these channels are yet omnipresent in political messaging, tracing online activities of voters, customizing campaigning and creating targeted ads.

How Are Political Parties Taking Advantage of Technology?

Determining the factors including demographic condition, first-time voters, floating voters, caste and social and economic sectors, political parties are employing huge datasets to understand the household and booth level profile of a constituency.

Congress has given a data docket to all of its candidates which tracks its on-ground activity through the Ghar Ghar Congress app. The data docket has information related to households, new voters, missing voters, and local issues.

On the other hand, BJP is way ahead in this approach to influence users. In northern states, the party has more than 25,000 WhatsApp group and by the time Congress thought of competing with it, the social media giants have changed the policy.

How Are Apps Benefitting Political Parties?

A Gurgaon-based startup Silver Push is working with Congress to analyze the sentiments of voters. They analyze the public reaction and success of it after the party launches any campaign.

The Bangalore based Next Election, Noida based Vidooly and Delhi based Neta app is working with election-related data. Amit Bansal, founder of Next Election app says, "Constituencies and education of candidates come under discovery while accountability covers work done by candidates. Under contribution, candidates can communicate their message to voters through the app."

January 2018 born Neta App that works under the leadership of Pratham Mittal, enables the user to rate their MPs and MLAs which act as a handy information source for political parties.

Additionally, Vidooly's analytics algorithm trace the pattern and tell which political video is getting much attention. Subrata Kar, founder of Vidooly says, "Our current study shows UP, Maharashtra and West Bengal see maximum consumption of political videos. And FMCG is the biggest investor in advertisements."