Will BJP Have Guts To Run A 2014 ‘Gujarat Shining’ Campaign?

A decade ago, the BJP assumed it would win the elections on the back of India Shining and called early elections. India Shining was the campaign executed brilliantly by Nirvik Singh of Grey Worldwide. It told Indians they were a Great Power and a middle income nation.

The problem of course was that we were neither. And the other thing was that the shining aspect was mainly in the BJP’s head. In the three years before the campaign India’s GDP had grown 4.4 per cent (2000-01) 6 per cent (01-02) and 3.8 per cent (02-03). Hardly the sort of record that should have made voters ecstatic about the party.

India Shining was a hit advertising campaign that didn’t have a product to sell.

But Pramod Mahajan (the BJP’s smartest next generation leader before Modi) was convinced that the time had arrived for a positive, nationalist election campaign. He was wrong.

In 2009, Congress could have campaigned on India Shining, because they actually had the achievement. In the four years before the election, India grew 9.5 per cent (05-06), 9.6 per cent (06-07), 9.3 per cent (07-08) and 6.7 per cent (08-09).

But despite this Congress chose not to do India Shining. They projected themselves as the party of the poor and campaigned on the strength of legislation such as the right to work scheme, which assured the poor 100 days of work, and the Right to Information, which addressed ordinary corruption and so on.

Some analysts, like Swaminathan Aiyar, believe that it wasn’t this campaign advertising itself as the party of the common man, but the economic growth that actually won Congress the election of 2009.

It is so difficult to gather data on voting patterns in India that we cannot say if this is necessarily true. In my opinion, the Congress itself has two ways of looking at it. The Sonia Gandhi led traditionalists believe it was mainly the laws aimed at the poor that won the day. The Manmohan Singh led modernists believe it was mainly the economic growth with some elements of the laws for the poor.

The BJP now faces a Gujarat Shining moment. Should it run a positive campaign around Narendra Modi‘s fine economic achievements? That becomes inevitable in the event of his becoming the candidate for PM. I have written before in this space that I do not think he will become Prime Ministerial candidate, and I still believe this.

But let us assume that with his recent elevation into the BJP’s central parliamentary board he will at least become the focus of the party’s campaign.

Many in the BJP, like actress Smriti Irani, do not tire of telling us that Modi is the only man ever in Indian history to use development as an issue, as he did in Gujarat’s elections. Will his joining the party’s national team bring this positiveness to the 2014 campaign? It will be interesting to see, because the experience of India Shining will be fresh for many others in the BJP.

The important fact here is that the key asset Modi brings to the party in New Delhi is the urban youth and the middle class voter.

It cannot be denied that for large numbers of these, he is an attractive figure, whom they want to see leading India. For them, talk of high economic growth and efficient government is more important than the social sector schemes that the Congress focusses on, which concern the rural and semi-urban poor.

It seems quite certain that the Congress campaign will again focus on its delivery to this section of Indians. For instance such things as direct cash transfers for food and fertilizer instead of subsidies, and the Right to Education, under which private schools are being forced to reserve seats for the poor. Even if it had wanted to, the Congress cannot campaign on its economic performance because this time it has not been great, for whatever reason.

This means the space is available for the BJP to project itself, under Modi, as the party of the middle class and also the party of economic development and growth.

Will they grasp it? Or will the ghost of India Shining spook the BJP’s headquarters?