How is PoliticalEDGE Assisting Politicians Conquer Constituencies?

Wednesday July 25, 2012 , 6 min Read

“In the 90s all the different fields were very unstructured and they got structured. But nobody thinks of politics- politics everyone says chalne do chal raha hai (let it go on). So why not try to structure the way a political campaign or party or a candidate works or runs his show?”*

PoliticalEDGE was founded to help solve the biggest problem in the political sector - the gap between the representatives and their electorate. It becomes difficult for the leaders to stay in touch with all parts of the constituency due to their busy schedules and the correct information gets lost traversing the maze of the party network. PoliticalEdge bridges this gap by its research, technical and communication capabilities.

“We have our operations in J&K, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Rajasthan, M.P., Gujarat, Delhi, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Bihar, West Bengal, Chattisgarh and Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and served well over 300 politicians. Our clients include Cabinet Ministers & Minister of States in the Government of India as well as the State Governments. We work for Political parties, MP’s, MLA’s and aspirants and provide them with tools and services to help them prepare for elections as well as manage their day-to-day activities,” says Saurabh Vyas, Co-Founder, PoliticalEDGE.

Gaurav Rathore and Saurabh Vyas are the Co-Founders of PoliticalEDGE. Both are alumni of IIT Bombay and have extensive experience in the domain. Gaurav has worked with Deloitte Consulting in their Siebel CRM Consulting practice for close to 2 years. He translated the concept of CRM to the Indian Political perspective and led to the development of e-VAL. He has got 7 years of experience in political research and developing technical products for political leaders and organizations. Saurabh has worked with country's leading analytics firm. Analytical capabilities backed with 7 years experience of working with political leaders helps him come up with result-oriented, innovative, and ever-improving research models.

“We started as 2 founders + 2 field researchers. Now we have a team of 100+, most of them as project managers, team leads and surveyors in the field. IITians and Journalists form the other part of the team which does the research and analysis. We are always open for recruitment as there is no specific skill set we look for. Most of our team started as freshers and it’s mainly on the interest, enthusiasm and work ethics of the candidate,” says Gaurav proudly.

They provide services to Political parties as well as inidivduals:

Political Party

Ticket Distribution - Feedback on “winnability” of candidates taking into account all the relevant factors. Conducting detailed research in the constituency at the Polling Booth or the Panchayat / Ward Level (as desired) to assess who is the most popular and accepted candidate by the public, party workers and other important people.

Opinion Poll - Conducting an opinion poll in a scientific manner targeting people based on caste, economic strata, age, education etc.

Issues - Assessing the relative importance of relevant issues and gauging their impact on the assembly elections.

Customized Study - Based on specific needs of the party in a particular area.

Individuals

Area Research - The Area Research will cover every single booth / panchayat of the constituency and within the booth / panchayat different segments of people will be targeted - according to the caste/religion, education, economic strata and age. The questionnaire will focus on the following parameters: Opinion Poll, Party Network, Caste Equation, Image of the Leaders, Image of the Parties, Important Issues, Developmental Aspects & Overall Ranking and Satisfaction.

War Room - The final punch. This is a 21 Day Package which is designed to give the contestant a good 2-3% vote shift in his favor by understanding and analyzing the last phase trends, creating segmented strategies for different kind of voters. The USP is that we will have a prior understanding of the voter's preference before communicating with him

Customized Study - Based on specific needs of the client.

Customized Study - Based on specific needs of the party in a particular area.

They have also developed products:

e-VAL

Online database management system, integrated with online maps. Can be accessed anywhere, anytime. This can be accessed from PC, Laptop and even Mobile. Helps keep the politician connected with the constituents with SMS and Email facility. The database contains Voter Profiling, Caste Equations, Party Workers, Influential People, Problems & Issues, Local Dynamics, Development Index and Past Election Results.

Apart from the data, the software has the capability to analyze different trends and patterns across polling booths taking into account the Opinion Poll Results, Past Election Data and Demographics to come with the SWOT analysis for the entire region. Also, the swing across elections helps in identifying stable and volatile booths.

CIMS

This is an offline version of e-VAL where we use the best available maps. However, internet connectivity will be required to send Emails and SMS’s.

e-ORG

e-ORG provides a complete database and communication solution for a political organization. Useful for all wings of the organization so that they can be more connected, informed and sound.

Voter Segmentation

Anything and everything on a voter list can be performed through this magic wand. This enables us to figure out the abnormalities in the lists and creation of lists using different parameters (age, head of family, count of family etc). Also helpful in creating the voter slips for printing addresses on envelops.

Their clients include:

1. C. P. Joshi - Cabiner Minister, Govt. of India (Member of Parliament - Bhilwara)

2. Milind Deora - State Minister, Govt. of India (Member of Parliament, South Mumbai)

3. Gulab Chand Kataria - Ex - Home Minister, Rajasthan (MLA - Udaipur, Rajasthan)

4. Abdul Bari Siddiqui - Leader of Opposition, Bihar (MLA - Alinagar, Bihar)

5. State from North-East

“Initial years were tough as selling an entirely new concept was not easy. But thanks to young leaders like Milind we were able to penetrate. Slowly, others also started to realize the potential of the inputs and strategies we suggest. Now a days, our major time is spent on delivering excellent data and analysis rather than selling. Political leaders these days want to adapt themselves to present times and are looking for scientific means not only to help them during elections but also manage their constituencies for 5 years. And, for good, their numbers are only moving north,” says Saurabh.

Till date, PoliticalEDGE has completed various surveys in over 45,000 polling booths all over India in over 200 constituencies. They have a collective experience of over 200,000 man-hours of Field Data Collection. Their Unique Data Delivery Model in the form of GIS enabled Information Management System allows the politician to access the data online as well as offline.

*Excerpt from Connect the Dots, Rashmi Bansal.

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