Winning the Mandate by Chakrabarty Bidyut;Hazra Sugato;

Author:Chakrabarty, Bidyut;Hazra, Sugato;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: SAGE Publications India Pvt, Ltd.
Published: 2016-02-15T03:53:23+00:00

9

Assessing the Election Campaign

Quintus Tullius Cicero wrote a short pamphlet ‘How to win an election’ for his brother Marcus in the summer of 64 bc. Marcus was a gifted orator, had a distinguished record of military service and possessed a brilliant mind. But he was not of noble birth. And nobody other than a noble had won the election for consul in a class-conscious Roman republic. Quintus wrote the pamphlet, the first known manual on electioneering, to help his elder brother.1 Those were for different times, for a different set of people and in a culture alien to India 2014. But certain salient points mentioned in the pamphlet are still pertinent for campaigning in an election. More so, it fit into the Narendra Modi campaign in 2014.

Quintus warned his brother, ‘since you are seeking the most important position in Rome and since you have so many potential enemies, you can’t afford to make any mistakes’. Substitute Rome for New Delhi and the name of the campaigner gets automatically substituted as Narendra Modi in place of Marcus Cicero. Like Marcus, India’s Modi had to remember the warning of Quintus, ‘You must conduct a flawless campaign with the greatest thoughtfulness, industry and care.’2 Narendra Modi was careful yet there was one slip up. In an interview with Reuters, Modi said and PTI reported on 12 July 2013

Another thing, … any person if we are driving a car, we are a driver, and someone else is driving a car and we’re sitting behind, even then if a puppy comes under the wheel, will that be painful or not? Of course, it is. If I’m a chief minister or not, I’m a human being. If something bad happens anywhere, it is natural to be sad.3

Prima facie there was nothing wrong in the simile but proved grossly incorrect for the Chief Minister of Gujarat who was accused of providing tacit encouragement of riots in 2002 riots which saw a large number of Muslims getting killed. It was irrelevant for his detractors that there had been not a shred of evidence against him and the nation’s highest court exonerated him from any kind of suspicion. The interview created a storm accusing Modi of comparing Muslims with puppies.

Running for an elected office according to the oldest guide on election campaign, could be broadly divided into two kinds of activities. First was to secure the support of friends. Modi had an advantage. Barring just few colleagues in Gujarat, he did not have many who could help him in the electoral battle. He had to therefore focus on the second kind of activity, that of winning over the general public. Even the divinity had to concede to Modi on this point. He won hearts of the common men across the country. How could he do it? Even in 64 bc, Quintus knew that communication skills are the key. Narendra Modi had proved beyond any shred of doubt that he is the best communicator the world has seen in many years.

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