Pocket Democracy

With his Neta app, Pratham Mittal has found a new role for cellphones in holding elected leaders to a higher standard

- Manu Balachandran

Pratham Mittal likens politicians to restaurants. “After all, both thrive on good ratings,” he argues. In an era where nearly everything—from Uber drivers to food joints—can be graded on the internet, the 27-year-old has built an app, aptly named Neta, which allows voters to rate their local politicians and even revise the votes based on their performance.

“Restaurants provide high levels of service and keep things neat because they know they will be rated on apps like Zomato and Yelp,” says Mittal. “I thought, in India, we should have something similar to rate our politicians. After all, they are concerned about their ratings.”

The Neta app is available on Android and iOS platforms, and voters can also poll from a website. Mittal wants to build a company, along the lines of Gallup in the US, which will gauge changes in political preferences, and quantify public mood.

“[In India] elections happen every five years, but on the app, [the ratings happen] every day,” says Mittal. In the five-year cycle, leaders are accountable only before elections. If elections happen every day, and a leaderboard is created daily, there is a need to be on top each day. That means leaders are going to work every day.”

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.) That meant, he was able to see a hung assembly, much before popular psephologists called it. “We had a strike rate of 92.7 percent, which is much more than anybody else’s,” says Mittal.