Tracing the Tech Evolution of Indian Elections

India’s electoral landscape has significantly transformed in the past three decades due to integration with and capitalisation on emerging technologies. Its spread can be traced to the extensive usage of phone calls in the 1990s, the Uttar Pradesh Assembly election in 2007 that saw the first “mass mobile phone” elections, the use of holograms in 2014, and, now, the current Artificial Intelligence (AI) era. While 2014 is remembered as the dawn of social media influence in Indian politics, 2024 marks the arrival of AI, revolutionising the way campaigns are run and elections are contested.

Big Data: The Tech Transformation of Indian Elections

In the run-up to the 16th National Elections of India with over 100 million young voters added to the electorate the new era of ‘electioneering’ emerged where social media and big data played a key role in connecting with the voters. Two irreversible trends that underlined the elections were a huge young voter base and advancement in technology. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) deployed a team of over 100 young techies and consultants who propelled Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the lead position. Through data analysis, the techies helped the party raise funds, rework advertisements and create detailed models for voter engagement in swing states as well as gender and minority voter clusters to increase the power of their micro-targeted strategy. The result was a data-driven election campaign, not very different from that of the U.S. President Obama’s campaign, though somewhat smaller in size, and scale.

Unique digital events like ‘Chai pe Charcha’, a programme for outreach that leveraged Direct-to-Home (DTH), satellite and internet to facilitate conversation on good governance, women's security and agrarian crisis put the leaders directly in touch with the people at the ground level. 1,350 3D rallies across India at the state and constituency level were carried out enabling millions of voters to see and hear PM Modi at multiple locations. This extensive use of technology reflected PM Modi's commitment to reach voters through innovative tech-savvy methods. Consistent voter involvement was ensured by encouraging the voters to record short videos on their vision for India which could be submitted through email, WhatsApp, and SMS and the shortlisted videos were featured on the India 272 campaign portal. Bharat Vijay Rallies leveraged social media to ensure outreach and engagement before the event and electoral data and on-the-ground reports to inform each rally speech with local context.

The WhatsApp Strategy: Redefining the 2019 General Elections

In the striking repeat of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the ruling BJP secured a second term. The 2019 General Elections in India were dubbed as ‘WhatsApp’ elections as the app not only enabled precise delivery of information to voters but also served as a powerful tool for organising and mobilising party workers. With more than 40% of the population using smartphones, political parties' IT departments took advantage of this trend.

On the one hand, the Indian National Congress (INC) deployed a ground-level team with data dockets to pass personalised messages to the voters through social media while tracking the ground activity through the ‘Ghar Ghar Congress’ App. BJP, on the other hand, had appointed nearly 9,00,000 ‘Cell Phone Pramukh’, one for each polling booth. Under a “booth action plan” devised by the then-party President Amit Shah, state units were tasked with listing smartphone users at each polling station. This data was integrated by the party’s war room in Delhi. Leaders, including MPs and office bearers, identified key cell phone contacts who then formed three WhatsApp groups of 256 members each for every polling station. The central war room and the BJP’s IT cell collaborated with professional companies to create targeted campaign materials on issues such as the party’s welfare programs, Modi’s personality, triple talaq, and the Ram temple. These materials were distributed to the election war room extensions in states, where nodal contacts at polling booths shared them in their WhatsApp groups.

On X (formerly Twitter), the BJP strategically capitalised on PM Narendra Modi's widespread popularity by actively engaging with his followers, enhancing his online influence. In contrast, Rahul Gandhi, the then-president of the INC, did not utilise a comparable strategy to engage voters on social media even though he gained more traction on his post. This disparity in approach contributed to the BJP's dominance in shaping the political conversation on X.

From Deepfakes to Voice Clones: AI in the 2024 Lok Sabha Polls

The 2024 Lok Sabha Elections witnessed a paradigm shift with both BJP and INC harnessing the power of AI to enhance their campaigns for the polls. AI-generated content, varying from the use of voice clones, AI-generated videos, personalised audio messages in different Indian languages, automated calls to voters in a candidate’s voice, deep fakes and AI-generated songs and memes were used. The hyper-realistic AI-generated content appealed to the emotions of the voter leveraging the relational bond with their leaders.

BJP, which has emerged as the front-runner in adopting cutting-edge technology employed AI to translate the speeches of PM Narendra Modi into different regional languages, increasing the reach of his speeches and presenting the leader as accessible to all segments of society. Parties like Dravida Munnetra Kazagham (DMK) resurrected its star politicians like M. Karunanidhi through deep fakes and voice clones to campaign for the current leaders of the party. Arvind Kejriwal was also campaigning from behind bars through the AI voice clones. AI was also used by parties to boost their meme wars with deep fakes, propaganda images, and AI parody videos.

In the absence of specific laws regulating AI use in India, the Election Commission of India (ECI) plays a crucial role. Even though apps like C-Vigil enhance digital access to the ECI, their operations remain opaque, failing to disclose the nature of complaints or their resolutions. On one hand, where AI can be considered a powerful tool with the potential to revolutionise information dissemination with the ability to achieve 80% accurate voter verification rate, it also poses risks. It can significantly improve access to electoral processes with the potential to manage voter data for approximately 900 million voters and engage voters more effectively through education platforms and chatbots. Conversely, the unchecked use of AI raises concerns about the spread of both accurate and misleading information, which could lead to political unrest and undermine social institutions. The challenge lies in how the government will regulate and classify content as fake or misleading amidst rapid technological advancements.

Kanika Sharma / New Delhi
Contributing reports by Manaswita, researcher at Polstrat