Tech tonic: Abdul Bari Siddiqui

Abdul Bari Siddiqui has done an Arvind Kejriwal, or even a Narendra Modi, and that too in Madhubani.

In setting up a dedicated call centre in the district, around 200km northeast of Patna, Siddiqui wants to listen to the voices of voters. In 2009, the senior RJD leader lost the seat to the BJP’s Hukamdeo Narayan Yadav by only 9,923 votes — considered a slim margin in Lok Sabha elections.

Five years down the line, Siddiqui seeks change with his campaign: “Vote for Madhubani”. For this, he has roped in the services of a professional agency to set up the call centre where the voters can vent their anger and wish support to Siddiqui till April 28. Madhubani goes to poll on April 30.

All that a voter has to do is give a missed call on 09250010829. The call will be disconnected after 3 seconds with a thanksgiving message on the respective number. Followed by this, the call centre would contact the caller and ask questions about issues which s/he wants to be addressed.

The issues raised by the voters will be added in the people’s manifesto to be released by Siddiqui after a fortnight.

“This is for the first time that any political party in the state has adopted such techno-friendly step to reach out to the voters. The techno-friendly service saves time and has a wide reach and great impact. The political parties prepare manifestos, which have nothing to do with the people’s welfare. But this time I have requested people to give a missed call on the given number and our representative will follow them up to know what changes and development they want in Madhubani. There are several problems, including rickety historical monuments, weavers’ welfare, locked industries and factories, potholes on road and many others. We shall release the manifesto in 15 days,” added Siddiqui.

In addition to this, the campaign team has also identified over 1 lakh phone numbers on which calls would be made to seek feedback about the issues concerning the constituency.

Both Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party and Modi’s BJP launched such “missed call” services, which turned out to be quite popular among voters, especially youth.