Saket Gokhale Alleges Illegal Collection Of Data Under ‘Mera Pehla Vote Desh Ke Liye’ Campaign (image-twitter/SaketGokhale)
The BJP government has recently launched a new campaign called ‘Mera Pehla Vote Desh Ke Liye’ in higher education institutions across the country. The campaign has been launched by BJP claiming to ensure universal enlightened participation of the youth in elections.
TMC leader Saket Gokhale on Tuesday came up alleging that the government is collecting the information of the first-time voters of the country under the shadow of a propagated campaign. Taking on X, the TMC leader called it a “shocking and concerning” act from the saffron party.
“In a brazen move, the Modi Govt is illegally collecting data of first-time voters to target them for the upcoming elections using state machinery,” he wrote on X.
Giving out the information on how the data are being illegally collected, the TMC leader alleged that the campaign is being launched on the MyGov website. He highlighted the fact that the awareness campaign is not run by Election Commission and “ECI is not involved & is purely a Modi govt campaign”.
Shocking & very concerning:
How the Modi Govt is ILLEGALLY harvesting information & data of first-time voters to help BJP target them
In a brazen move, the Modi Govt is illegally collecting data of first-time voters to target them for the upcoming elections using state… pic.twitter.com/RGXruTZdMv
— Saket Gokhale (@SaketGokhale) March 12, 2024
Pointing out the quirky part of the “take a pledge & quiz” on MyGovt website, he wrote, “The “pledge to vote” can only be taken after registration (which has to be done after OTP authentication)”.
He further added, “The registration form asks details like (a) Name, Gender & Date of Birth But wait..after that it requires the person to fill: (a) State (b) District (c) Pin Code “
The TMC leader provided insight by giving out the above-mentioned information on how one could easily attain the name of the voting constituency of the participant.
Making it more sinister, the portal then asks the candidate the following, “Name (b) Gender (c) Date of Birth (d) State/UT (e) District and (f) Full address – ACCORDING TO GOVT ISSUED ID,” Gokhale wrote.
“This above information is sufficient to be able to identify and target a voter right up to their polling booth level,” claims the TMC leader.
What surprised him the most was when the portal asked for the bank account details of the participant supposedly to “credit prize money”.
“It is MYSTERIOUS as to why these bank details are asked from EVERY participant instead of asking these from the final selected “winners”,” Gokhale wrote.
Slamming the BJP for running such an illegal campaign, he wrote, “This is, clearly, an illegal and dirty voter-data harvesting campaign being run by the Modi Govt using state machinery for helping BJP by targeting 1st time voters with propaganda.”
He also criticized the Election Commission for letting such an unofficial and unauthorized campaign by Modi carry on ahead of the election date announcement.
“What is even more shocking is that the Election Commission is allowing this unofficial & unauthorized campaign by Modi Govt & BJP to carry on despite the fact that elections are to be announced in a few days,” he concluded his post.
