Neta App to rate politicians and assess voters before elections

An app called Neta created by Pratham Mittal lets the user “review Neta or Politicians”. Mittal believes that just as apps like Zomato and Yelp help keep a check on the restaurants, Neta app can be used in the similar manner and act as a watchdog for politicians. Business Insider reports that, in May, Mittal claims he polled 2.5 million votes during the Karnataka legislative assembly elections. (The service is currently operational only in Karnataka, and Rajasthan’s Ajmer and Alwar constituencies.)

According to the report, the votes are displayed in the style of a leaderboard. If users are particularly fond of a politician, he or she will be ranked on top. Neta app users can also change their votes if they feel that the politician is performing way below mark or if they have really made a change.

Users can also have discussions and polls related to issues in their area on a different section in the app. This not only allows more feedback but also an insight into ground reality.

Business Today’s report stated that, the team behind this app has drawn up a database of constituencies across the country and the politicians who are competing from those areas. Once a new user signs up, he or she will have to feed in their pin code to find their respective constituency and then vote for a neta.

Mittal and his team do not ignore the fact that there is a great chance of misuse by parties with a strong IT cell. As a preventive measure, the app asks for a user's phone number which it then verifies with telecom operators' data to find the user's name and then tallies it with voter databases to find the user's constituency, Business Today reports.

Additionally there's Aadhaar as well. Users can also feed in their Aadhaar number and the app then verifies the user against UIDAI APIs. However, Mittal also concedes that there is a 4% error margin, according to the report by Business Today.

Neta app already has 1,00,000 downloads on Play Store. Moreover, the report stated that Mittal plans to release the app across the country. He eventually plans to sell the analysis collected on the app to political parties. Mittal also plans to sell the data to media houses and competing against firms like CVoter, Today's Chanakya and more.