cVIGIL: An app for citizens to catch election violators

The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Friday (October 14) revealed the assembly election date for Himachal Pradesh.

The election will be conducted in a single phase. It is slated to take place on November 12 and the results will be declared on December 8.

During elections, it has become a bad habit among election candidates and their henchmen to distribute freebies to gullible voters to induce favorable votes on election day.

To curb such inducements, ECI for long has been trying to nail the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) violators, but in most cases, they have escaped from the clutches of the law, as flying squads never reach the spot on time.

Now, with the cVIGIL app, citizens can capture real-time data and inform ECI officials.

Here are key features of ECI's cVIGIL app:
-- cVIGIL, which stands for Vigilant Citizen will help ECI capture MCC violators with evidence
-- With cVIGIL app, people can record or take pictures of a candidate or his followers handing out money or gifts to citizens of the constituency to garner votes
-- Besides the photo/video, the app also captures the geo-location of the spot too
-- Once the citizen uploads the multimedia content with a complaint on the app, the flying squad is expected to arrive at the exact spot to take MCI violators to the Police custody
-- In most cases, if given the right information, ECI's flying squad can reach the spot on time and catch the culprits with material evidence (unaccounted gifts/ cash), and convict them successfully
-- With the cVIGIL app, users can even track the status of the MCCviolation case
-- Users can call the National Contact Centre at 1800111950 or State Contact Centre at 1950 for other complaints.

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