A tea-stall in his teens! A
tea-boy! A tea-seller!
Narendra Modi has always been claiming
so. His party has being saying so. It happens to be the baseline of his
profiling anywhere and everywhere – the tea-seller who became a chief minister
- the tea-seller who became the prime-ministerial nominee of the Opposition
alliance in the world’s largest democracy.
Narendra Modi has enjoyed a numero uno sort of position on
the political ramifications of the tea-selling proposition. No other politician
had challenged his position in the past as none of them could see any point of
electoral mileage in that.
Tea-selling was never an issue before. It was never an
electoral issue.
But, it is a hot-issue now. It is a hotly debated electoral
issue now.
Yes, selling tea was never so hot.
The temperature has got so
steamed up that politicians are engaging in active debate over it with some
claiming to be the cohorts of the profession.
Mr. Modi has come up with a
massive political branding exercise ‘Chai Pe Charcha with NaMo’ (Discussion on
Tea) themed on the ubiquitous tea-time in every Indian’s lifestyle.
Interestingly, this ‘tea themed
political discourse’ has its origin in a political remark of the Congress
politician Mani Shankar Aiyar who, in a Congress meet in Delhi last month, had
taken a jibe at Mr. Modi enumerating on later’s prime-ministerial aspirations
and his tea-selling past. (“There is no way he (Modi) can be Prime Minister
in the 21st century... but if he wants to come and distribute tea here we can
make some room for him.”)
Politically silly statement it
was. But it gave Mr. Modi and the BJP an idea to encash on the public-sentiments
by exploiting the elements of the ‘Aam Aadmi’ (common man) politics. Tea time
is anywhere and everywhere in Indian lives and Mr. Aiyar’s statement gave the
BJP idea its peg to theme an elaborate political branding campaign around tea-time
in public places.
Now, it’s an undisputed fact that
Narendra Modi is the most efficient political campaigner and political brand
manager in the Indian polity today. This ‘Chai Pe Charcha’, reaching around 200
million people (BJP’s assessment) in 300 cities same day, same time, every
week, until the Lok Sabha polls are held, looks set to become a brilliant
electoral campaign.
That is significant for extracting
the political mileage during an election time when the ‘Aam Aadmi’ sentiment is
running high with the stunning debut of the Aam Aadmi Party in the Indian
politics that fought on the poll-planks of corruption and political ascendancy
of the common man.
And with that, Mr. Modi has got the
first contender to his numero-uno position on his tea-selling roots. The once
formidable politician of Bihar who ruled a
state and played a kingmaker in the national politics is now claiming that he
is the original tea-seller of the Indian politics.
Politically interesting days
ahead folks!