The 1971 general election, called a year ahead of schedule, was the first when a political party used a slogan in its campaign against the backdrop of the prevailing situation and as a response to it. And “Garibi Hatao” seemed to come from the heart, at least that it is what the people thought when they gave Indira Gandhi and the Congress 352 seats (out of 518), up from the 283 the party held.
Then there was the infamous campaign during the 2004 general election where an attempt was made to build Brand India with a hackneyed slogan. But the corporate-style approach to “India Shining” bombed for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which initiated it, and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) it led. From 299 seats (out of 543) in 1999, the NDA was reduced to 189 and the BJP itself was reduced to 138 seats against the 182 it held.
But beyond the slogans and the sloganeering, each election has its own unique feel amplified by the personalities involved, the issues that surround the election as also the campaign styles of candidates and supporters as they reach out to voters. If in 1977 the Janata Party successfully pitched its campaign as a choice between democracy and dictatorship, in 1980 Indira Gandhi returned to power with a massive majority (353 seats) on the fractured remains of the Janata experiment campaigning on the slogan of stability and with the hand as the symbol for the first time.
The 1996 election campaign featured P.V. Narasimha Rao’s economic reforms vs the BJP’s Hindutva. The reforms failed to sway the electorate and the BJP emerged as the single-largest party with 161 seats. Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s 13-day government gave way to a United Front government led by H.D. Deve Gowda of the Janata Dal supported by the Congress.
The 1999 campaign was perhaps the first time two personalities from rival political parties faced off against each other. All other things being equal between the Congress and the BJP, it was a Sonia Gandhi (“videshi”) vs Vajpayee (“swadeshi”) battle. The “swadeshi” won this time and lasted the full term only to be stung by “India Shining” in 2004. In 2009, the L.K. Advani-led BJP campaign went with the slogan “Majboot Neta Nirnayak Sarkar” and the Sonia-led Congress decided to highlight its achievements of the past five years and promised to deliver more on the welfare and development fronts.
Amid the larger campaign strategies of the main political parties and the rallies addressed by prominent leaders and film personalities, often they lost sight of the need to connect with the voters at the local level. It is as much about popularising the party’s election symbol as it is about presenting the candidates to the voters. The campaign comes alive as candidates and party activists look for new ways to attract attention. Hair on the head carved out in the shape of the party symbol and ear studs in the shape of the party symbol are but a couple of ways to grab attention.
In this round, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has taken increasingly to such mass contact programmes at the local level, “broom” in hand. Every election also has its own maverick candidates, mostly independents. They are more often than not distractions, but in this round even such distractions could weigh with the voters if they are from serious candidates of the AAP.
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