Men who steered the campaign
BEHIND THE SURGE HT takes a look at the four men who helped the BJP achieve a historic win in the northeastern states
ROLE: members bear fruit,” Pandey said.
In neighbouring Tripura, where the contest was between the BJP and the incumbent Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPI(M), the brief from PM Modi and party president Amit Shah to Rajat Sethi, who was steering the back room, was to “remove fear”. Sethi worked along with Shivam Shankar Singh (both are associated with India Foundation).
Sethi, who worked with Ram Madhav during the Assam and Manipur polls, says the back room only executed the ideas of Modi and Shah.
“Under the guidance of Ram Madhavji and Amit Shahji, we implemented what the PM told us, which was to remove fear from people’s minds. There were so many violent attacks in the state against people opposing the communist ideology. We had to think of micro strategies to help overcome that fear. In the end it has been a people’s fight,” ROLE: A former RSS full-timer, 52-year-old Sunil Deodhar is being credited for anchoring the BJP’S electoral campaign in the Left bastion of Tripura. Deodhar’s poll management skills during the campaign in Varanasi, Prime Minister Modi’s constituency, which he was responsible for during the 2014 general elections, was the reason why party president Amit Shah picked him for the job. In Tripura, which the BJP won convincingly, Deodhar dovetailed the traditional campaigning style of the RSS-BJP — strengthening the cadre and intensifying outreach through door-to-door campaigns — with the modern canvassing mediums of social media.
In a state that had been ruled by the CPI(M) for a quarter of a century, the
BJP projected itself as the alternative that would change the fate of the state and its
people Sethi said.
The BJP, backed by the widespread network of the RSS, in addition to its own well-structured cadre, buttresses its election campaigns through the extensive use of social media.
In Meghalaya, where internet penetration is limited, the party’s back room managers had to rely on traditional methods of campaigning and bolster it with use of Whatsapp to connect with people at the booth level.
In the state in which the BJP in the last assembly poll managed only 1.27% of the votes and lost the deposit in all of the 13 seats that it contested, the focus was on local issues.
“We followed PM Modi’s development agenda of sabka saath, sabka vikas (with all, development for All). We raised the issue of inadequate drinking water supply, poor state of roads and the need to bolster tourism for employment generation,” said Satyendra Tripathi, the organisational secretary in the state.