Nitish campaign has an edge in Bihar

The strategies of Nitish’s campaign are the brainchild of Prashant Kishor Pandey, who had played a big role in the Narendra Modi campaign.

The ruling Janata Dal (United) seems to have taken the lead over campaigning in poll-bound Bihar where the elections are slated for September this year. While the BJP is still basking in its May 2014 success, both its main political enemies, the JDU and the Rashtriya Janata Dal have started campaigning on the ground.

Last week, the JDU, on the lines of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Chai pe Charcha”, which became a household name in the run-up to the 2014 general elections, began Parcha pe charcha (discussion over pamphlet), in which JDU leaders engaged people over a discussion on the “good work” done by the Nitish Kumar government.

Even though party leaders refused to acknowledge it, it is believed that this new “charhca” is the brainchild of Prashant Kishor Pandey, who had played a big role in making “brand Modi”, while working for Narendra Modi as a part of the Citizens for Accountable Governance.

The parcha ( pamphlet) highlights in detail how Nitish Kumar took Bihar to new heights after taking charge in 2005. It lists measures taken by him to improve law and order. The pamphlet says that more than 23,000 criminals have been punished. Not surprisingly, a substantive portion of the pamphlet highlights how the Narendra Modi government has gone back on its poll promises. The JDU aims to conduct such charchas in around 35,000 villages of the state by this month-end.

The JDU has also brought out a comic book — Munna se Nitish” (From Munna to Nitish) which narrates the life of a child Nitish Kumar. Munna was the childhood nickname of Nitish and the idea for the comic, too, has been borrowed from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Bal Narendra” comics that were released during the 2014 general elections.

And it is not just parchas, SMSes exhorting people of the state to vote for Nit- ish Kumar, another feature that was part of PM Modi ‘s campaign, and huge posters highlighting major achievements of the government, have also started coming up across the state.

Similarly, posters asking citizens to give a missed call to a mobile number to become a JDU party member have also sprung up across the state. Kishor, who coined the slogan “Abki baar, Modi sarkar”, has come up with “Aage badhta rahe Bihar, phir ek baar Nitish Kumar” (Let Bihar continue to grow. Nitish Kumar, once again).

While the JDU has embraced new ways of campaigning, RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav has asked his party workers to go by the tried- and- tested way of door- to- door campaigning. “We will be focusing on door-to-door campaigning in which we might use horse-drawn carriages to draw people’s attention. Every party has a different campaigning style, which depends on its core voters,” a RJD party MLC said.

In the midst of all this, an apparently over confident BJP has only deputed Union ministers for campaigning, whose efforts are limited to giving speeches at the district headquarters and rarely visiting the villages.

The BJP Union ministers give brief speeches, and then fly back to Patna where they attend press conferences which last longer than the amount of time they addressed rallies, and finally they return to Delhi.

The party is yet to start tapping the rural voters, who are upset over the land bill.

A BJP leader, while admitting that the “Narendra Modi wave” has ebbed, stated that it was as yet too early to begin a door -to-door campaign.

“We are still in the preparation stage and right now, not even the candidates have been finalised although the process has started. The Narendra Modi wave might have dulled but the work done by the Central government in the last one year will help us. Let the JDU and RJD leaders go to the villages. They need to explain their conduct more than we do.”