Public Perception of positioning of Poll Parties in Election 2015How to boost ones' chances

By : Amit Bhushan Date: 9th Mar. 2014

The Elections 2014 is promising to be- by far the most colourful one, amongst the recent held rituals of democracy in the country. The public in slowly becoming more vocal and trying to shape the agendas of Leaders and Parties although not much can be done about their hidden/personal agendas yet since the opposition is yet to mature up and bring such facts to political lime light. This goes as well for the Political newbies who claim to be agents of change since they too have not done any study/home work yet about the political candidates in fray but have been limited to attacking the torch bearers with gusto. This may be something that political parties at the national level hope and plan for, so that a lot of candidates can wash away their sins away from lime light. A testimony of this fact is that the number of allegedly corrupt leaders has not declined and neither has the number of candidates rising up from pedigree. Also the candidates changing seats to suit the aggressive style are being accommodated to constituencies where they will be simply asking questions rather than replying to no work track record by main parties and this is not being targeted by newbie or the local parties trying to save their own turf, although nearly all parties seem to be out and trying to sell renaissance through their social media handle to unsavory voters of their constituencies. Another aspect is domination of names of scams as well as names of controversial political persons or bureaucrats involved with them. However not one political avatar has gone to unearth details of the modus operandi about the novelty or subtle aspects that led to loss of exchequer or unscrupulous gains for specific groups, which leads one to wonder about the intellectual capacity of the political person or their seriousness towards the cause of anti-corruption. Very few candidates and parties are glued to their constituencies and where this seems to be happening is the area where one literally has fight of David versus Goliath otherwise the usual election hubbub of sloganeer-ism and name calling is what one can expect himself to be entertained with. What seems to have changed little is the campaign format in spite of so many colourful issues and people in this election. Most parties and campaigner still retain Slogan and Lecture format that suits only the established player. It is a format imposed by large parties with a command and control structure to maintain an edge for principal leaders & their primacy of projection national leader for the election. Such campaign formats may be of little use for newbie parties which want to represent Aam Admi like every other party or for Grass root leaders which have a strong cross-section of peoples support in a constituency or a participant who wants to differentiate his promise or commitment vis-avis others. Some of such participants may do much better if they hold town-hall question-answer sessions with voters over issues of prominence in a constituency or a meet the family & friends session where voters get to put one or two questions about participant to his family/friends. The election campaigners are yet not choosing their rally formats to highlight their candidate in best possible light and to force competition candidates at a disadvantage even as the equipment for such campaigns is readily available for much lower amount. The candidates are likely to be back again at bribing voters

even though they know that it is of little use since money spent cannot be recouped in case of defeat. This is perhaps because of the lack of awareness or management skills for such campaign or both (even though such formats are a delight for TV shows and are regularly appearing on channels). As far as principal leadership of political parties is concerned, such lack of awareness is bliss for the principal leadership of the national parties. It is time for the political candidates to be aware of various campaign styles and choose one which serves them right. Most politicians know only about the slogan and lecture format which requires a towering personality around whom a crowd is gathered. The personality is required to deliver a powerful (cover specific hard issue or a passionate emotional appeal) lecture to audience and a Chinese whisper about reverence/mesmerization power of the candidate is built. This is then followed up by the real candidate which reverentially bows to the principal campaigner with vows to live the promise. A new format devised by newbie political candidates have come under special focus i.e. to pick up a suitable target in a political constituency and make a go mission against him. The idea is to dazzle the public with ferocity of attack and mesmerize public so that the candidate is perceived as a real challenger and the fight is reduced to a two pronged battle with either a win or loose outcome for the candidate who may otherwise be a non-entity in publics mind. This tactic can win polls if there are suitable engaging stories with the challengers whose research should be impeccable about the various sabotage & sliminess of the rival. The public maturity level for the tactic is yet to grow for this technique. Quite a few candidates may be willing to ride this bandwagon for present since this tactic has proved to be good for quite a few and has low cost tag attached to it. An effective counter to the strategy is not yet available and what one has is just the bureaucratic and private sector denial with lack of legal action by challenging candidate. The question-answer format to the contrast encourages voters to ask relevant questions from candidate with candidate delivering requirements/expectation of local population as answers. Often questioners are planted amongst public to ask relevant questions so that the public can be bombarded with prepared answers that highlight the strength of candidate and brings failure of opposition to light; however to be effective the candidate must take 1/3rd of questions from real public. Q/A format may be a better format for well qualified and aware candidate who may force the government candidate as well as other challengers on mat with their answers (without any real debate). The format is more suited to grass root candidates with a gift of the gab. Another type of Q/A format is meet the family & friend. This allows candidate to positively reinforce his well connectedness and commitment as he takes simple and light questions from public and his well known friends highlight positive qualities and commitment of the candidate. The basis of campaign is high moral character of the candidate. Subtle campaign with a very strong publicity about the candidate along with some other campaign formats such as Manifesto may do the trick provided the competitors lack any real pull among masses. Such campaign would try to evict competition with questionable character and background.

Some parties and candidates also invest their time and money in manifesto, which has often proven to be of little use in India (if used stand alone) due to its limited understanding/readership. A manifesto is usually a document of promise along with a roadmap to paradise which makes sense only if is tied to ground realities for the government i.e. in case such a candidate or party comes to power. If not, the document can be a noose around the neck of the candidate/party serving little political purpose. Usually, all candidates of a political party are supposed to use the document as bible and prove to voters that their bible is sacred while others are just hoarse. Quite a few manifestos have unanswered questions in a leakage prone India where politicians as well as bureaucrats are shy of taking responsibility. Debate is another effective format where a campaigner challenges opponent for debate. The opponent at the initial campaign level may be planted by the campaigner and the planted opponent would bow out at a later stage in favour of the campaigner. This allows campaigner to build his image/issues/public opinion. As the candidates image is lifted he is challenged by actual candidates due to strong impact and his test starts and off-course the other candidates are tested in the process. Debates are a delight for youth and elderly who get charged up but is not favoured much by working people. Service camp is another type of campaign where candidate will sit down with his agents to note down issues of interest to public and identify those which the candidate can solve with his immediate intervention prior to the elections. The candidate would then hold small local area rally with the beneficiary endorsing the candidate and candidate listing his promise about issues that he would solve if voted to power. With a strong positive reiteration and public service, this works well for candidates with knowledge of local administration and who can rally a large number of workers to work for them. Survey is another method to campaign. In this method, an independent agency is commissioned to administer a structured questionnaire to people. The positive results/features are widely publicized followed by a whisper campaign reiterating positives of the winning candidate. The candidate then holds small rallies showing how his promises have affected people so far and his delivery structure/basis of the way to paradise. The need to compare with others is usually killed before such rallies. The method is widely preferred by the top political leadership & used frequently, but bottom rungs are yet to catch up the game. While India witnesses a change of electoral practices, it is pertinent that it also sees different campaign styles, that is selected by candidates as per their longing and which suits their best interests. The social media is also providing a useful platform to politicians who are now trying to connect with public direct sans any mass media tool, though mass media still retains its importance to reach audience at the bottom rung as well as in the far flung places where almost 70% of India resides. Frequent attempts to seek the commissions discipline on candidates as well as police/bureaucratic actions to tie the campaigner to Aachar-samhita or rule-book is an art which candidates are also trying to master so that they tie the campaigner posing threats and make him wary of losing seats even after securing vote. While the candidates boost the organizations capacity and capabilities to bolster their chances, the public will of course have to rely on its wisdom to select best possible candidate as its representative inspite of not having any strategy and relying on wisdom alone.