Analyzing Rahul, Modi

Congress party vice president Rahul Gandhi (whose Parsi grandfather Feroze Gandhi was a feisty member of parliament) has received much flak for his uninspiring campaign in the recent elections for Parliament. Despite having US-based Burson-Marsteller and Dentsu India, a Japanese publicity major to give an image makeover for the party and its prime ministerial hopeful Rahul, the results were dismal. Among those analyzing Gandhi’s erratic style of functioning are two respected The Indian Express (May 18, 2014) columnists, Coomi Kapoor and Lord Meghnad Desai.
Kapoor observed: "In this election, Rahul Gandhi’s timing and political instincts have been way off the mark. Throughout the campaign, he was reluctant to grant interviews to the media after his disastrous interaction with Times Now’s (news anchor) Arnab Goswami. Rahul even denied Doordarshan an interview ignoring the enormous reach of the quasi-government terrestrial channel and the fact that it would have been suitably deferential while questioning him. Two days before the last phase, however, he was persuaded to speak to two language newspapers.”

Narendra Modi (left) and Rahul Gandhi. The victorious Modi’s

media campaign was partly managed by Sam Balsara (below)

Desai commented: "The Congress now… finds itself saddled with a clueless heir apparent. It can neither get rid of the (Gandhi) dynasty, nor can it dare to suggest to Rahul Gandhi that he should take a course in public speaking or work harder than he has done so far. The party faces the prospect of spending five years in opposition with a leader who has an aversion to attending or speaking in parliament. Rahul was elected to parliament and, luckily for him, the Congress won power in 2004. He has had the luxury of being able to come and go as he pleases since the UPA (the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance) had the numbers. In opposition, the required discipline will be hard. No escaping abroad for two days as he has just recently done. Being in the opposition will test Rahul and show if he has the political stamina to lead his party for five years in the wilderness. One can only hope that he will not listen to the small army of sycophants who will tell him that it was not his fault that the Congress lost. He has to introspect if he wants to be a serious politician.”
In contrast, the victorious Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s prime ministerial candidate, then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi projected himself as a rallying point for change in the country. Using three advertising agencies including Sam Balsara’s Madison World, the BJP mounted an unprecedented blitz in all media, including Facebook, Twitter, et al. In an interview with The Economic Times (ET) published on May 19, 2014, Balsara said, "All major agencies were competing for the account. What won us the business was a lot of detailed work revolving around media reach in different constituencies… We were confident of delivering on our product not just because of faith in our own experience, expertise and capability but we knew we had a strong product, compared to (the) competition.”
Elaborating on "the toughest challenge” of his career, Balsara told ET that "frequent changes based on feedback from different state units” resulted in work timings from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. changing to 12 noon to 3 a.m. Expressing willingness to work with the new BJP government, the advertising ace noted, "What I would really like is for the Government of India to appoint us as media advisors. We could make a huge difference in terms of efficiency and effectiveness. Communication is a very important element in the nation building process.”
When asked whether it was true that the estimated expenditure for the election advertisement campaign was nearly Rs 5,000 crore Balsara responded: "That is indeed the finest compliment that Madison Media has ever received. The actual spend is a minuscule fraction of that number, but I am not at liberty to reveal it. The BJP campaign has once again proven that mass media has the power to move mountains; it is not as expensive as it is thought to be and multi-media is essential for effectiveness.”