If you are a Journalist, Bureaucrat, Political Leader or even just a common individual, you probably would have witnessed the change in the dynamics of politics, particularly during and post 2014 General Elections. Elections in India are a festival in itself where people of the world's most populous democracy come together and celebrate the festival of democracy by casting their ballot and by electing their preferred candidates to the power corridors. However, a lot of people might not be aware of the fact that for winning elections in a country like India where factors like caste-arithmetic, language, demography, religion, developmental schemes, connect with people and etcetera do play a crucial role. The old traditional ways of just reaching out to electorates by way of organising a rally is almost over. In today’s rapidly changing political spectrum, there are a lot of backdoor Election Campaign Strategies that decide the winnability of a candidate in his/her constituency. Today, most political outfits, be it National or Regional, take the help of Political Strategist and Organisations to ensure their victory and these strategists work round the clock to ensure the triumph of their candidates/parties.
So what does it take to curate successful Election Campaign Strategies? Ace Political Advisor & Strategist Rishi Dubey and Bhuvnesh Pant , the Co-Founders of PR Baba, decodes the factors that help in creating successful Election Campaign Strategies.
Start Early
A lot of factors smartly and effectively put together helps a candidate cross the victory line in his/her constituency and one such factor is starting early. This gives you an edge over your other political competitors. Starting your campaign early will give you the first mover advantage as you will have the appropriate time to gather all the data and statistics that will help you in making all the necessary course corrections. Additionally, you will have all the time to connect with people, knowing their issues and the candidates that they prefer for their constituencies. The sudden announcement of voting dates by the Election Commission of India (ECI) can take you by surprise and it would be tough for you to cover the entire ground in a short span of time. Commencing the campaign early on will also allow you to decide on the seat-sharing formula with your ally, if you are going in the election arena in an alliance.
Political Landscape
A successful election campaign cannot be complete without understanding the ground realities and this should be followed till the grassroots level. An in-depth understanding of the Political Landscape is a must if one wants to win the election be it a Municipal election, Assembly election or Lok Sabha election. The size of the constituencies (Area Size), demography, dominant caste in the region, male-female ratio, religious population, issues faced by common voters of the region, the percentage of first-time voters are some factors that, if you have data regarding, will help you in being ahead of other players that are in the fray. This can be done by decoding the data of the previous election results and gathering information from other relevant and authentic sources. Moreover, through door-to-door surveys, online polls and such other methodologies, one can gather everything at their disposable. Before commencing a political campaign, knowing the ground reality is a must or it is likely that you would be taken by surprise, just like in the case of 2021 West Bengal Legislative Assembly, where, despite the wind blowing in favour of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), they lost the election to the ruling All India Trinamool Congress (AITC/TMC) whose work was undertaken by a well-known election campaign designing organisation.
Field Organizing
A perception that is still largely prevalent in the Indian political spectrum is that rallies bring you votes and the more crowd your rally draws, the more votes you get. However, this is something which is partially true and the same can be testified by the fact that BJP’s, particularly Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s and Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s rallies in West Bengal drew a mammoth crowd, however, the results are for everyone to see. One of the effective ways of connecting with people is focusing on Field Organising and to go for door-to-door campaigning. Why? Because it is a chance to connect with people directly and to meet hundreds of people in the constituency. India largely lies in Rural regions and it is very difficult to reach out to voters in rural constituencies that cannot be reached through smartphones and online meetings. Door-to-Door campaigning also allows candidates to communicate directly with the voters and build a rapport with them.
Voter Outreach
Not only this, but in this era of Digitization, social media is indeed a very powerful and cost-effective tool of communication that political parties have started to use to communicate and interact with their voters. If you have a large team of dedicated social media warriors then you can create a perception in the minds of voters and turn the tide in your favour. Political campaigns are not just confined to posters and banners. Social Media campaigns are full of info-commercials, advertisements, creatives, blog posts, and thousands of tweets, Instagram posts and Facebook posts. Not only this, WhatsApp Bombardment has become a key tool used by political parties in reaching out to their targeted voters. Through this, they send repetitive messages focusing on their target voters which plays a crucial role in creating a positive perception regarding them. Politicians are now able to convey their message through endless info-commercials and gauge their communication by viewing direct responses to their actions on social platforms. Political stories or hoaxes are curated on different social media platforms to deliberately push forward disinformation and deceive the voter. Usually, these stories are created to influence the mindset of voters and to push forth political agendas, or to create confusion or with an aim to manipulate perceptions.
Personal Branding
Apart from these, one of the crucial aspects of a successful Election Campaign Strategies is curating a positive Personal Branding of the candidate. Personal branding for political leaders and parties is an ever-changing aspect in the realm of politics. To be a successful politician in a vibrant country like India, you must need to understand how to market yourself effectively and smartly. The goal of personal branding is to project yourself as a leader who is deep-rooted in the society and understands the issues faced by common people and make them believe that, if elected, he/she will address all of their concerns and will not let them down. This is a lengthy process that takes time, however, without a positive image, it is likely that you won’t be able to survive in the long run as people want leaders who they can resonate with and whom they can look upto.
If all of these are combined together, it will be labelled as a successful Political Campaign Strategy and in all probability, one will emerge as victorious, feels Ace Political Advisor & Strategist Rishi Dubey and Bhuvnesh Pant, the Co-Founders of PR Baba.