Strange and sinister are the ways and means of credit giving and snatching in the political arena. The entire media limelight on Sushasan Babu got stolen overnight towards the campaigner-in-command Prashant Kishor whose peans are now being sung inside and outside, creating national headlines though for brief epochs, projecting him as the emancipator of the brouhaha of Bihar. In an ever-interfacing inter-connected world, globally integrated lobbies wreck havoc on public minds snatching away their very power of original critical thought.
The boy from Buxar, the erstwhile seat of Sage Vishwamitra and theater of the second most crucial imperial contest for the British, might have championed a branded model of technology driven professional electioneering first under the auspices of CAG and later under the banner of IPAC, doesn't happen to be the first paratrooper into the fray.
The resplendent reminiscences of the much avowed #IndiaShining campaign at the close of NDA-1, orchestrated by the Late Pramod Mahajan with professional inputs from Sushil Pandit's The Hive, still recapitulates the soaring sores, in the advent of the momentous political debacle. The precept, the design, and the eventual delivery was nonetheless unprecedented and a pioneering attempt from within.
The fall-out of the so very well tuned in #MajbootNetaNirnayakSarkar campaign, by the Stephenanian and IIMA grad turned political activist in Prodyut Bora, was a greater attempt in professional electioneering with all kinds of technological tom-tomming available at that point in time.
Prodyut's YPRI (Young Professionals for a Resurgent India) was somewhere a precursor to Prashant's CAG (Citizen's for Accountable Governance). Like the several of 'mind-boggling' Indian Start-Up Innovation driven enterprises & bollywood masala scripts this too was a blemish borrowing from the wielding west which started its romances with campaign based manipulation of public opinion much earlier.
The turn of the tides of professional electioneering in its third attempt turned the fortunes of Prashant Kishor, largely due to the stellar track record of Narendra Modi and realpolitik grassroots understanding of Amit Shah.
The debacle in Bihar & Delhi is being seen as the classic outcome of a political gridlock accentuated by the Unified Opposition which is finding it difficult to gain grounds in the advent of the Modi-Shah-Bhagwat-Madhav-Doval-Sahasrabuddhe-Murlidhar-Rajnath-Gadkari-Venkaiah-Jaitley juggernaut.
The performing core of visionary Good Governance setting in some of the structural & foundational transformations having geo-political ramifications; supported by the disciplined Party Organization consolidating the core vote base and fending for newer equations & allies; galvanized by the Spiritualized Societal Superstructure streamlined & cemented by the Sangh Pariwar has created a greater existential crisis for fissiparous political enterprises whose motto has been invariably "power for power sake".
It would take the master strategists & organizers to accomplish a breakthrough to squander this political chakravyuha. Sooner, than later, it should be done, putting to service the tactics & tools of the opposing forces themselves.
Technology driven political messaging, no doubt turned the eyeballs of one and all for its newness, but its role cannot be accorded more importance than that of an item number by a supporting-actress. The central grand narrative was undoubtedly woven & spearheaded by the long haul committed delivery in public service where even a couple of khadi kurtas used to be a luxury to the key proponents.
The high-handedness in creating a larger than life image for such Campaign Managers is again an exercise in sophistry as there is nothing which is ordained from some heavenly revelations. Any such technology driven professional electioneering campaign can be easily curated from first principles of
- identifying the target stakeholders, clustering and linking them across creating the tactical social graphs with all the concerned parameters in place.
- converging on a set of narratives around which this stakeholder base has to be engaged with, compiling enough content from multifarious sources with ready research & analytics capabilities to back up an ever increasing knowledge driven space.
- fine-tuning & integrating a mix of engagement mediums & tactics from digital to physical to what all and what not both covert and overt across levels.
The real glory and power has to vest with the leaders of the masses who have the capacity to invoke their collective will for a converged action. Originality of thought rooted in the glocalized context integrated duly with the action programmes can only come out of decades of selfless public service, where power is just a means of amplifying the drive.
The growing aspiration of an ever connected electorate is making this as a standing exercise which is good from a participative governance standpoint as well.
The risk of dejection and sense of rejection which paratroopers from Prodyut to Prashant face post electoral victories forcing them to jump the ship creating a momentary vacuum, can always be obliterated by creating a party wide in-house corporate function of technology driven professional electioneering.
The differentiating aspect of technology is easy to get internalized by the ideologically initiated cadre which by its very orientation is not keen to steal the overnight limelight without the tribulations in the fray.
For record, the Man @ Wembley, spent some 3 odd decades to become an overnight sensation and a global heartthrob.
The professional paratroopers in politics need to understand this amply well.
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