One-liners, hashtags and campaign managers dominate poll scene in A.P.
Every party has come out with di…erent slogans and punchlines to catch the imagination of people and most of them have employed some professional agency as media and campaign managers; most of the MPs and MLAs today have their own campaign and social medi
n 2019, the YSRCP, led by Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, stormed into the Andhra Pradesh Assembly by securing 151 of the 175 seats, decimating his nearest political rival and former Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu of the TDP, who could garner only 23 seats.
Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy caught the electorate’s imagination during the 2019 elections with the slogan ‘Raavali Jagan; Kaavali Jagan’ (We will bring Jagan; we need Jagan).
Such one-liners are back again and are sweeping the State as the campaign for the 2024 elections picks pace.
While Jagan is back with his power-punched oneliners such as ‘Memantha Siddham’ (All of us are ready) and ‘Why not 175?’, which attacks Naidu by indicating that YSRCP will win all the 175 seats in the Assembly this time, Naidu is heard saying ‘Why not Pulivendula?’ (indicating that the TDP will bag the Pulivendula seat, the home turf of Jagan) and ‘Babu surety — Bhavishyathu ku
Iguarantee’ (Chandrababu Naidu is the surety for your guaranteed future) countering Mr. Jagan by saying that he will take Mr. Jagan head-on on his home turf and constituency Pulivendula, and trying to win the faith of the electorate by saying that ‘if he comes – a good future is guaranteed’.
Creative space
Creative gra ti, slogans, short poems and songs have been the heart and soul of the biggest democratic festival of India – the elections.
Every party has its own agenda and they come out with dierent slogans and punchlines to catch the imagination of the people.
Lasting impact
In 2004, Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led BJP had come out with the slogan ‘India shinning’ and now Narendra Modi-led BJP has been harping upon ‘Abki baar 400 paar’.
But the slogan that hit the Indian electorate hard was in 1984, when the Congress had come out with the one liner ‘Jab Tak Suraj Chand Rahega, Indira Tera Naam Rahega’. This slogan, immediately after the assassination of Indira Gandhi, enabled the Congress party to sweep the elections with about 414 seats, the highest so far in the Indian political history, and the young pilotturned-politician Rajiv Gandhi became the Prime Minister for the rst time, reminisces Prof. Prasanna
Kumar, political scientist and director of the Centre for Policy Studies.
One-liners and slogans do grab the attention of the people and they impact the psyche of the electorate.
In 1989, Vishwanath Pratap Singh’s ‘Raja Nahi Fakir Hai – Desh Ki Taqdeer Hai’ and in 1996 BJP’s ‘Sabko Dekha Bari Bari — Abki Bari Atal Bihari’, had hit the electorate hard.
The messages were clear and in 1989, V.P. Singh, who had resigned from Rajiv Gandhi’s cabinet, as a fallout of the Bofors scam expose by The Hindu, had formed the government with the creation of the National Front, which was a combination of all like-minded opposition parties.
This also heralded a new phase in Indian politics, as, for the rst time, coalition politics had come into play.
Though in 1977, Moraji Desai’s Janata government was also a sort of coalition, V.P. Singh’s NF was a coalition in true letter and spirit, said Prof. Prasanna Kumar.
Social Media impact
But over the years, the campaigning style and tools have changed and now it is dominated by social media.
‘’Earlier, we would see politicians seeking the help of the journalistic fraternity to design their speeches or slogans. Now we have professional agencies to do the job,’‘ said IT Minister in Jagan’s government Gudivada Amarnath.
He is the second generation politician and earlier his father Gudivada Gurunadha Rao had served as a Minister in the Congress government in the late 1980s.
As per a few senior politicians and political analysts, almost every political party has employed some professional agency as media and campaign managers.
Mr. Jagan has Prashant Kishore’s I-Pac and Naidu has Robin Sharma’s team assisting him.
Not only the top leaders, but most of the MPs and MLAs today have their own campaign and social media managers.
Though the operational style has changed, the essence appears to have remained the same.
Technology takes over
Election continues to be the biggest festival of the Indian democracy and only thing is that technology has taken the lead over traditional campaign style, said Sanjay Kumar of the Centre for the Studies of Developing Societies.