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Crafty campaign

The rise of strong regional parties over the past 30 years owes at least in part to the Congress Party, which was in a commanding position in the decades post-Independence, proving unable to maintain this fine balance. It is in this context that the ruling BJP’s ability to construct a horses-for-courses strategy which allows it to deploy its most popular leader Prime Minister Narendra Modi in aid of being local for vocal, as it were, is as close to pulling off the impossible as a political party can get.

Crafty campaign

(File)

Crafting an effective campaign for state Assembly polls is one of the toughest tasks in contemporary Indian electoral politics.

For a dominant national party, finding the balance between using the advantages this position affords while balancing them with local concerns is vital.

The rise of strong regional parties over the past 30 years owes at least in part to the Congress Party, which was in a commanding position in the decades post-Independence, proving unable to maintain this fine balance. It is in this context that the ruling BJP’s ability to construct a horses-for-courses strategy which allows it to deploy its most popular leader Prime Minister Narendra Modi in aid of being local for vocal, as it were, is as close to pulling off the impossible as a political party can get.

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That is what a ‘party machine’ can deliver. Evidence if any were needed for this assertion can be found in Mr Modi’s campaign meetings last week. In Assam, for example, he launched a scathing attack on “international conspirators out to discredit India” over the ongoing farm protests and burnished his national as well as nationalist credentials by iterating that the country will respond to such vilification “with all its might”.

He then vocalised the local connection with the issue at election rallies in the state’s tea belt iterating at Dhekiajuli that even chai was not spared by the conspirators: “You must have heard in the news; these conspirators are saying that the image of Indian tea has to be maligned systematically and discredited worldwide. From the land of Assam, I want to tell these conspirators, no matter how hard they try my tea workers will win this battle.”

That this polemic came a day after the Union finance minister distributed Rs 3,000 each to over 700,000 tea garden workers was the perfect communications strategy set-up. Then followed the identification with the local. “The red tea of Sonitpur is known for its very different flavour. Who would know better than me how special the taste of tea from Sonitpur and Assam is?”

Similarly, the BJP has also managed to maintain an equilibrium between its tom-tomming of bringing in the CAA nationally while managing to project itself as the savour of local Assamese or Ahom cultural traditions by deferring its implementation in the North-Eastern state given the apprehension of indigenous communities of being swamped by persecuted religious minorities in neighbouring Bangladesh.

The BJP’s critics may well point to such a campaign as the party trying to ride two horses at once, and the consequences of that are well known. Unless, of course, one digs deep into history – Genghis Khan’s horsemen conquered nearly half the world doing precisely that. It is for the political opposition to come up with an alternative narrative marrying the national and the local of which there are no signs on the horizon yet.

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