The back-room boys of the BJP
NEWDELHI: As it got down to working out the contours of a pre-poll alliance in Nagaland, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leadership had a crisis on hand: representatives of 11 political parties, including two of its own, supported a call by civil society groups and Naga Tribal Hohos for putting on hold the state assembly election until a solution to the Naga issue was reached.
Within hours, the BJP back room had put out a statement, announcing the removal of the two party representatives. Through the use of social media and messaging platforms such as Whatsapp, it simultaneously relayed the message that negotiations to ensure polling as scheduled on February 27 were underway.
In the three states of Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya, the back room managers had to identify issues on the ground that had a wider resonance as well as find the best means of communication to gain traction of those issues. They also had to balance traditional campaigning methods with newer forms.
In the politically fragile state of Nagaland, where the BJP looks all set to form government with its ally, the back room warriors had to rely on ingenuity to counter questions about the details of the Nagaland Peace Framework that was signed in August 2015 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isak-muivah) to end the insurgency in the region.
While Union minister Kiren Rijiju was in charge of the state, the back room was anchored by BJP general secretary Ram Madhav’s aide and India Foundation senior fellow Priyang Pandey.
From countering accusations of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)-BJP combine trying to impose a “Hindutva” agenda in the state to reaching out to various tribes and addressing their specific concerns, supplementing the campaigning on the ground with outreach through social media, Pandey and his team had their job cut out.
“We worked according to the plans drafted by the party brass led by the PM and it is heartening to see the hard work of the party