'EC website a mine of resources for political parties'

The information readily available on the Election Commission’s website pertaining to electorate serves as a database for most political parties to channelise their resources during polls, said political consultant Shivam Shankar Singh.

He was speaking at Fifth Elephant, an event organised in the city on Thursday.

With the available data, one could arrive at conclusions about a person’s caste and age, he said.

Singh said the data that is available to the public has details of voters under each Assembly constituency. “There is a list of name, father’s name and age. This is good enough for anyone to arrive at a conclusion about an individual’s caste. The second name is indicative of caste in most cases,” he said.

He said it was easy data for most political parties to extrapolate information essential to channelise money and human resources while campaigning in a particular area.

Singh, who till recently was associated with the BJP, mentioned that even electricity bills served as a data source for political parties to understand the socio-economic status of certain localities.

“Just by entering the mill numbers, the amount is displayed at the Delhi Electricity Board. This is enough to understand one’s economic status. The more the number of ACs in your house, the higher the amount generated in the bill.”

At yet another session on Aadhaar, speaker Anand Venkatanarayanan said there were several loopholes in the Union government’s scheme.

“A fake software that can generate Aadhaar cards is readily available in the market. Anyone can buy the software to create Aadhaar cards of their own,” he said.

He said the software is still functional even after it was pointed out to the Union government.

“There is a YouTube video explaining how the software can be used with the help of a patch,” he said.