The Bhartiya Janta Party led National
Democratic Alliance
government launched ‘India Shining’ in the run-up to the 2004 General
Elections. It lost. The Congress party led United Progressive Alliance launched
its campaign led by ‘Bharat Nirman’ in the run-up to the 2009 General Elections. It won. The
Congress party is again gearing up for a massive campaign in the run-up to the
next General Elections with the recently re- launched ‘Bharat Nirman’ campaign
that, according to the reports, is expected to cost Rs 35 crore in the initial
run of 15 days.
Do such
communication management campaigns really help in gaining a significant chunk
of voters?
Did the
NDA campaign fail or the alliance’s governance fail?
Was the
UPA-1’s governance win supported by a meticulously drawn communication campaign?
Or was
there lack of a political alternative after the NDA government failed miserably
to reach out to the larger India
that was known as ‘Bharat’ in the perennial ‘India Vs Bharat’ debate circles;
‘Bharat’ that represents the majority of India - poor, poorly literate,
poorly fed and poorly kept?
Did the
NDA’s campaign and the governance fail to make the people of ‘Bharat’
understand that their misery owed more to the long run of the Congress party that
had ruled the Independent India most of the time (almost 53 years of the 66
years of independence) and other party or alliance governments needed time and
that the five-six odd years were just not enough to undo the rot propagated by
the grand old party of India?
An event in making, with the
Congress party led UPA alliance government facing the credibility crisis with
series of scandals, controversies and scams, it is going to be an interesting observation to see if the Congress
party is going to come up with a communication management strategy encompassing
elements of crisis management working simultaneously on the measures to counter
the massive negative publicity or it still believes in hard-selling its
populist schemes like it did in the 2009 elections.
It would tell whether the
Congress party had learnt from the mistakes of the ‘India Shining’ campaign in
conceiving and designing the ‘Bharat Nirman’ campaign or if it was just akin to
riding on the good show of the UPA-1 government.
But, was it really a good show of
the UPA-1 government?
The country knows now that most
of the massive scams today, the 2G spectrum allocation scam, the coal blocks
allocation scam, the Commonwealth Games scam, irregularities in National Rural
Employment Guarantee Act or in National Rural Health Mission or many other
scams, have had their origin during the ‘good old days’ of UPA-1?
Let’s wait to see. Let’s watch as
the biggest event of the Indian democracy unveils!