BJP, Congress release their campaign theme
The Congress’s campaign theme was announced by the party’s chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala at a conference that also featured other party leaders, including Anand Sharma and Pawan Khera.
2019’s battle of the campaigns will be between the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) “Phir Ek Baar, Modi Sarkar” (A Modi government again) versus the Congress’s “Ab Hoga NYAY” (Justice now, but also a play on the party’s promised income guarantee scheme NYAY), with both parties announcing their campaign themes in the Capital on Sunday.
Both launches come just four days before the first phase of polling.
The Congress’s campaign theme was announced by the party’s chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala at a conference that also featured other party leaders, including Anand Sharma and Pawan Khera.
The BJP’s slogan was announced by the head of its publicity committee, Union finance minister Arun Jaitley, in a conference that featured, among others, Union minister Piyush Goyal and BJP general secretary Bhupender Yadav.
The BJP’s campaign would have sub-themes, Jaitley said at the conference: “Kaam Karnewali Sarkar” (A government that works); “Imaandar Sarkar” (A government that is honest); and “Bade Faisele Lenewali Sarkar” (A government that takes big decisions).
The Congress’s creative campaign places party president Rahul Gandhi at the core of the theme. “It reflects his personal style which is informal, real and helps him connect easily and genuinely with people... Simplicity, genuineness, honesty as opposed to hollow, empty slogans and fake promises is the approach the Congress publicity campaign takes,” Sharma said at the news conference.
Both parties also released their theme songs for 2019 on Sunday. The Congress’s official campaign song has lyrics by Javed Akhtar and conceptualised by filmmaker Nikhil Advani. The party ran into trouble with the Election Commission of India on Saturday, with the poll watchdog objecting to certain words in the song. Senior party leaders said the concerned lyrics were removed by the party late on Saturday.
The BJP’s campaign song raised issues of corruption and development efforts while asking voters to ensure another term for the Narendra Modi-led government.
While launching the campaign theme, Jaitley said the choice for people in the elections will be between the “cohesive and tested” government of PM Modi and “chaos and mahamilawat” offered by the Opposition.
He said people have to decide between a government led by one captain or a team of 11 players, and that of 40 captains. His party’s campaign with the tag line of “Phir ek bar, Modi sarkar” (Modi government, once more) will centre on the Modi’s five-year performance, including on the national security front, “honesty”, and his ability to take big decisions, among other issues, Jaitley added.
The poor, the middle class and the neo-middle class will be at the centre of the BJP’s electioneering, Jaitley said, and took a swipe at the Congress for “not even saying a word” on the emerging middle-class when it launched its manifesto.
The Union minister said these promises are not for future as the government has fulfilled them in its five-year term.
The BJP will launch its manifesto on Monday.
The Congress’s manifesto titled “We will deliver” focused on the issues of agrarian crisis and unemployment, and the minimum income scheme that guarantees ~72,000 a year to the poorest 20% households in the country.
The visuals in the Congress campaign feature Gandhi’s interactions with people over the last few years. It will revolve around key promises mentioned in the party’s manifesto, including the NYAY scheme, unemployment, universal health care, doubling education budget, the women’s reservation bill, and a separate farm budget.
“The campaign focuses on justice, this word embraces all, it is not limited to the big promise of providing minimum income to the poor of the country but it also promises justice for unemployed youth, farmers, women, our Dalit Adivasi brothers and sisters, justice for the businessmen that the badly executed GST [goods and services tax] has ruined,” Sharma said.
The Congress campaign has been designed by digital media firm Silver Push. The song and the videos launched by the party have been created by media group Percept Limited. Digital firms Nixon and Digital Box also worked on the campaign.
“The exercise had six sub-groups visiting and interacting with various categories of people, including farmers, unemployed youth, women, businessmen, MSMEs and students. We found that demonetisation, economy and unemployment emerged as the bigger issues. Around these issues we asked creative agencies to weave out a campaign for us; in the meantime our manifesto was taking shape and NYAY scheme became the spine of our manifesto. Hence, we decided to focus on NYAY and then the slogan ‘Ab hoga NYAY’ was born,” said senior party leader Pawan Khera.
Khera said that in comparison with the BJP’s Lok Sabha campaign, which has mainly revolved around national security and the Balakot airstrike, the Congress was firm on sticking to “people’s issues”.
“During our interactions with the people, when we asked them the simple question: what is it that you like about the Congress, the feedback we got was ‘they know how to govern’; we kept that in mind, we also asked what they did not like and took into account the criticism. We asked them what they did not like about the Modi government and the top most response was demonetisation. NYAY basically ‘remonetises’ the rural economy,” Khera added.
According to a senior leader who asked not be named, the Congress’s publicity committee had to change the order of the slogans it had planned to go ahead with after the party’s manifesto was launched.
“After the manifesto launch, certain things got rearranged. Slogans such as ‘Jan jan se nata hai, sarkaar chalana ata hai’ became number two in the order, ‘Ab hoga NYAY’ become number one. Other slogans in the pipeline included ‘Kaam kaam, samman’ and ‘Milao haath badlaav se,” the Congress leader said.
Commenting on the campaign theme launches of the Congress and BJP, professor Mahesh Rangarajan of Ashoka University said: “The narrative of the BJP is performance and the promise of continuing that. They have spun around its slogan from last time. It symbolises the figure of Modi — what he symbolises, that he is as big as the party, his centrality to the new BJP post the Atal-Advani era. Congress on the other hand, is going with a similar theme of its 2004 slogan ‘Congress ka haath, aam aadmi ke saath’ much more than ‘Garibi Hatao’ of 1971, reaching out to have-nots and also those who wish they were much better off. NYAY is not just referring to the minimum income scheme but is also a play on the word.”
(With agency inputs)