With a year to go for the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, the Congress has launched a hunt for a face to front its campaign in the crucial state.
The Congress is generally not a fan of projecting a chief ministerial candidate before an election as the party believes that such a step could result in unnecessary factionalism. But changing times call for changing tactics. Recent experience suggests that elections have become more personality-driven, and it helps to project a chief ministerial candidate ahead of polls.
Election strategist Prashant Kishor, who has been roped in by Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi to steer the party’s campaign in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, has suggested projecting a chief ministerial candidate in the two election-bound states.
In Punjab, the party has already zeroed in on state unit chief Amarinder Singh. However, Rahul Gandhi did not make a formal announcement to this effect during a recent trip to the state. Nevertheless, the party’s campaign revolves around Amarinder Singh. Kishor has already coined a slogan: Punjab da Captain and Captain da Punjab. He has also initiated the Coffee with Captain campaign to reach out to young voters currently veering towards the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party. It was on Kishor’s prompting that Amarinder Singh recently held an interactive session with party workers and is now embarking on an extended trip abroad to woo the large Punjabi diaspora, which plays a key role in Punjab’s assembly election.
Searching for candidates
Punjab may be sorted but finding a suitable candidate in Uttar Pradesh is going to be a tough task. Unlike Punjab, where the party still has strong roots, the Congress has been in steady decline in Uttar Pradesh for decades and is currently only a bit player in the state.
The party managed to win only two Lok Sabha seats here in 2014. In the 2012 assembly polls, the party won just 28 seats despite fielding candidates in 355 constituencies.
The Congress organisation in Uttar Pradesh is in shambles and it has no major support base, having lost the Dalits to Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party and the minorities to Mulayam Singh Yadav's Samajwadi Party.
In an attempt to create a buzz around the Congress, Kishor is learnt to have suggested that Priyanka Gandhi Vadra be assigned a major role in the state. He has also proposed that former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit be projected as the party’s face in Uttar Pradesh.
While Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s entry would undoubtedly give a much-needed fillip to the party’s campaign, not many Congress members are convinced about Dikshit.
“She has had her innings… Sheila Dikshit’s age [78] is against her, and moreover, she has no support base in the state,” said a senior Congress leader.
Kishor’s suggestion with regard to Sheila Dikshit is in line with his view that the Congress should woo back the Brahmins – once ardent supporters of the party – as the preferences of the other major castes are already well known. There is a belief in some quarters that the Brahmins may be willing to give the Congress another chance as the alternative, the Bharatiya Janata Party, is set to play the Other Backward Classes card. The recent appointment of Keshav Prasad Maurya, who hails from the Kushwaha caste, as president of the BJP’s Uttar Pradesh unit suggests as much.
Innovative campaigns
While Congress leaders from Uttar Pradesh are skeptical about projecting a face in the state elections, Kishor is apparently keen that the party should name a candidate. This is primarily because the master election strategist’s campaigns are generally crafted around personalities. “Kishor has personally admitted that he sells personalities, not parties,” said a senior Congress office-bearer.
This was evident in the 2012 Gujarat assembly elections and the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, when Kishor successfully pitched Narendra Modi as a development icon and a decisive leader through the extensive use of modern communication technologies.
From the “Chai Pe Charcha” campaign (a video conference across 1,000 tea stalls), to the 400 video vans deployed in Uttar Pradesh to take Modi’s speeches to inaccessible rural areas, or the use of 3D holograms for the simultaneous projection of his speeches at 100 locations, the campaigns were all about Modi and not the BJP.
It was the same story at the Bihar assembly polls late last year, when Kishor ensured that chief minister Nitish Kumar became the talking point in the election. Instead of “Chai Pe Charcha”, he conceptualised the “Parcha Pe Charcha” campaign to get people’s inputs about the state government’s performance. Kishor was also the brains behind the “Har Ghar Dastak” campaign, which required Nitish Kumar and his party members to seek votes by literally knocking on people’s doors.
As electioneering picked up speed, the narrative on the ground also changed and the Bihar election was soon converted into a battle between Modi and Nitish Kumar.