Anti-incumbency and Dirty Tricks
Anti-incumbency is term unique to India and it's politics. It means that an incumbent to office shall normally be voted out of office. Actually it should be other way around and if incumbeent in office has performed well, it should be kept in office but that does not happen. There are two reasons. One is that incumbent do not perform. Second is the incumbent, even if it performs, it does not meet the expectations of the people. Hence people keep shuffling the governments in the hope that it will perform well some day.
As stated earlier, barring Nehru (1957 & 1962), Indira (1967 & 1972) and Manmohan (2008), no one could beat the anti-incumbency. Fairness of all elections prior to 1990 are suspect, especially when Shashi Tharoor, a member of parliament and Congress Party admitted that 1987 elections in Kashmir were rigged. The other Congress leaders also admitted the riggingcclxxxiSee http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2223364.stm If they could do it in Kashmir, it was possible everywhere. In fact recently an ex MP, Kirti Azad who was in BJP but joined Congress in 2019 asserted that Congress workers used to capture booth for him and his late father in Bihar until about 1999 election.cclxxxiiSee https://www.opindia.com/2019/02/congress-workers-used-to-do-booth-capturing-for-me-and-my-father-when-there-was-no-evm-congress-leader-kirti-azad/amp/
Prime Minister
Prime Minister of India is a powerful office but not as powerful as one may envisage. Prime Minister, as discussed earlier, has to act with majority of Cabinet. It is the entire Cabinet which constitutes the Central Government. Of course existence of any minister in the cabinet is at the pleasure of the Prime Minister.
Constitution of India is a complicated document. As far as the governance part is concerned it was modelled on Government of India Act, 1935. There is a division of power between Central Government and States. In regard to law and order Central Government has miniscule power to act for national security. Crime which affects, people the most is not within the purview of Central Government.
Often Central Government, grants money or aid to States for specific purpose but utilisation of that money is the prerogative of the State. Centre can not compel the State. Recently the States of Chhatisgarh and West Bengal have refused to join the Ayushman Bharat, the healthcare scheme of the Centre.
All these factors make it easy to blame Central Government and the Prime Minister for the things which he has nothing to do.
Watchman of Graveyard
Graveyard is a unique place. It has buildings, small or big but never huge, no kitchen and no toilets. People visit but no one stays. Beyond clean lanes to walk, nothing much is expected. There is a watchman in graveyard but nothing much is expected from him as well. What if all the dead wake up one day and decide whether to keep the watchman or not?
Welcome. This is democracy. Politicians presume that voters are dead except when elections are around. They suddenly wake up and start doing something to show that they are doing everything. Worst part is that in election rhetoric they make claims as if they are "Master of the Universe" and can do anything but after election, they act like watchman of graveyard, where the relatives of the dead has to take care of the grave and watchman just watches on.
Governments invest heavily in bureaucracy and they do have answers to most of the problems but if the executive head i.e. politician has his own agenda to help a few, bureaucracy can not help general public much. Most people blame bureaucracy but as it appears, India is where it is because of very hard working bureaucracy. There may be few rotten apples and bureaucracy may be pampered with luxurious life styles but they were consistently performing. In States where bureaucracy has failed, it resulted in doom. To give example, see West Bengal and what was in Uttar Pradesh before 2017.
Most of the first timer politicians, like dream merchants, perform like watchman of graveyard. The movement of "Right to Recall" is aimed at making electorate alive. It envisage that if people are dissatisfied they may requisition that a fresh elections be conducted and if present elected representative wishes to continue, s/he may contest again and win.
The cost of elections is prohibitive but if this policy is to be implemented, there was never a better time and technology than today. It is high time that people may demand right to recall and be alive again. This single act will enhance the performance of elected representatives dramatically. In the meanwhile let's see how a watchman of graveyard campaigned and won again.
Defying anti-incumbency
Notice the 2009 campaign of Dr. Manmohan Singh. Actually six factors worked for him in 2009 elections:
1. Clean personal image of a saviour who had ushered India onto a modern nation in 1991 from a draconian state of too many controls. (Prior to 1991 India was similar to present day North Korea or Iran with less killingscclxxxiiiPeople opposing Nehru/Gandhi were not executed but would die a mysterious death. Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, Deen Dayal Upadhyay were of BJP but Lal Bahadur Shastri Lalit Narain Misra, Madhav Rao Scindhia, Rajesh Pilot were of Congress Party. Sunanda Pushkar was wife of Congress MP. There is a long list of people dying mysterious deaths. Even more outrageous claims are made here: https://www.indiatimes.com/culture/who-we-are/7-of-india-s-most-controversial-deaths-in-recent-times-247989.html and more charming leaders)
2. Sympathy from voters that due to communists' obstruction he was unable to unleash Reform 2.0.
3. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act that this Parliament enacted has vested the right to work to every rural household for hundred days of guaranteed employment. (MNREGA)cclxxxivSee https://archivepmo.nic.in/drmanmohansingh/pmsinparliament.php?nodeid=35
4. Indo-American Civil Nuclear Deal, even though most people did not understand it's implication. But it was branded as victory.cclxxxvISBN 978-0670086740, the Accidental Prime Minister by Sanjay Baru See Chapter 12 titled "Singh is King". It was supposed to end perennial power shortage.
5. Economic downturn post 2008 collapse in the world needed a distinguished economist like Dr. SinghcclxxxviMany awards and honours conferred upon Dr. Singh in his public career, the most prominent are India's second highest civilian honour, the Padma Vibhushan (1987); the Jawaharlal Nehru Birth Centenary Award of the Indian Science Congress (1995); the Asia Money Award for Finance Minister of the Year (1993 and 1994); the Euro Money Award for Finance Minister of the Year (1993), the Adam Smith Prize of the University of Cambridge (1956); and the Wright's Prize for Distinguished Performance at St. John's College in Cambridge (1955). Dr. Singh has also been honoured by a number of other associations including the Japanese Nihon Keizai Shimbun. Dr. Singh is a recipient of honorary degrees from many universities including the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford. to pull India out.
6. Astute media management highlighting the above points. (Manmohan conferred Padma Shri Awards to 2 journalists in 2008 and one in 2009. The leaning of all three is apparent.)
It was simple and brilliant plan and it worked. It defeated the anti-incumbency and "Singh was King". To quote from Accidental PresidentcclxxxviiSee ISBN-13: 978-0192758989; The Accidental President by Tom McLaughlin (2018).:
"Roosevelt was a great architect," Oppenheimer figured. "Perhaps Truman will be a good carpenter."
Manmohan Singh as finance minister in 1991, proved to be good architect. In 2009 people had hoped that he can not be worse than a carpenter as a Prime Minister. But voters are often wrong in democracy, especially when it relates to the character. In this case Manmohan turned out to be watchman of graveyard.
Under Manmohan, India saw worst economic crises between 2009 to 2014 when Indian rupee fell from Rs. 37 to a USD toRs. 70 per USD. Such steep fall meant that entire population of India had it's net worth wiped out by about 45% without even knowing that it has happened. Worst part is that no body asked him about this indirect taxation which coupled with 20% inflation in food items.
India was on the verge of becoming another Venezuela. No wonder the International agencies called India as one of the fragile five economies.
Performance of elected
Anti incumbency is thus a term used in politics of India to define a Government which could not perform or is perceived as non performing. In fact anti-incumbency sounds better than the Graveyard's Watchman.
Actually people prefer to vote for the Government if it can justify that it tried enough. In 2009 Manmohan Singh successfully avoided the anti incumbency by transferring the blame to left parties supporting his government by claiming that they interfered in reforms. He had a personal image of a savior. As a Sikh, he had a image of next door bold helping hand of Sardarji, who arranges free Langars and is always around for help.
The performance of opposing BJP especially the Prime Ministerial candidate was lack lustre to say the least. While BJP retained it's State Governments, it could not win back Lok Sabha to form a Government.
The anti incumbency is multi layered. It is inextricably linked with performance of elected representatives as well. People, often condone the fault of elected representatives in the face of performance (actual or expected) of leader as they did in 2009. Often they don't as in December 2018 when Ministers in Government in Rajasthan too lost their seats in state legislature.
A popular trick is to drop all or unpopular elected representative and field fresh candidates. This was tried by BJP in Municipal Elections of Delhi in 2017. It worked partly due to anti incumbency against Arvind Kejriwal, Chief Minister of Delhi, which was proved to be worst performer.
For 2019, the BJP has launched a campaign to directly connect with voters, onlinecclxxxviiiOnline connect through this web site: https://bharatkemannkibaat.com/home as well as off line. It has sent mobile vans all over India to invite suggestions from common people, which will be incorporated into election manifesto of 2019. It is an admission of the fact that people'selected representatives are either incompetent or that they are not performing their job.
To say that anti incumbency is multi layered, is another way of saying that the voters are not fools. They keep a watch on who is working and who is not. Some times voters do get lured by dirty tricks department of the politicians and sometimes not. Modi has tried to ease many policies to defeat the anti incumbency with a slew of announcements in the budget of 2019.
Dirty tricks department
Every political party has a dirty tricks department. It does not matter how they call it or manage it. It can be the IT cell or the Media department or the Public Relation Department or a combination of all. This group is responsible for creating or responding to dirty tricks or both.
For opposition the idea is to defame the Government and create anti incumbency. In the past two decades, with 24x7 TV News, it had become very easy to execute the propoganda of dirty tricks. Result is that now 24x7 news has lost it's credibility and viewership but it can still address the dedicated voters of a party who will see and affirm his/her own prejudice.
Tehlka
Tehlka means Sensation. What an honest name? It was an Indian news magazine known for its investigative journalism and sting operations. It was founded by Tarun Tejpal and Aniruddha Bahal in 2000 as a website. It began circulating tabloid-format newspapers in 2004 and switched to magazine in 2007. Both the founders were earlier working in Outlook Magazine.
In India there is a tradition that if some one gives money, the payee is not supposed to refuse as money is a facet of, if not an incarnation of Goddess Laxmi. It has become a logic to be corrupt. Logic is that I did not ask but if some one gives money, how can I refuse. This attitude had to change after events of 2001.
In 2001 two reporters of Tehlka posing as arms dealers' company called West End went around meeting various officials in the government including then President of BJP, Bangaru Laxman. The selection of name West End, itself was comic as it is partly the name of a an old and famous apparel Shop in Karol Bagh, New Delhi. Yet no party noticed the comedy.
At all the places the West End representatives expressed desire to supply arms to Government and offered cash payment as 'Salami' or salute money. That is another practice prevalent in India. There was no commitment or promise on the part of payee but they accepted money as if it was rightfully theirs. Entire episode was recorded on a sting camera. The expose later made by Tehlka shook the world. Many heads rolled. Trial and convictions took place.
Eventually it terribly affected the image of BJP which had won and formed the government on the plank that it was a party with a difference. For next ten years BJP was condemned to opposition benches. The Guardian newspaper salivated on the news of this scandal in these words:
"…..Tehelka's first success was to catch cricketers and officials taking bribes. Its second success was even more sensational, even though it was entirely based on a kind of hoax. For eight months, two Tehelka reporters worked on an elaborate sting, involving hidden cameras, whisky parties, and prostitutes. They approached the then president of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Bangaru Laxman, as representatives of a fictitious arms company called West End. Laxman was offered a "new year party gift" in exchange for putting an arms deal their way. It was not a large sum: about £1,500-worth in dollars or rupees. Laxman, a practical man, chose US dollars.
To further smooth their pretended enterprise, the "men from West End" entertained Indian army officers and defence ministry officials who took to the Royal Stag whisky and the girls provided with gusto. These sponsored parties, as well as Laxman counting out his cash, were recorded on camera. The material, hotter than any Hindi gangster picture, was distributed last March to television stations all over India. Laxman had to resign, and so did George Fernandes, the defence minister….."cclxxxixSee https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2002/jan/16/features11.g2
In 2007, again Tehelka released footage showing several BJP politicians admitting they had a role in attacking the Muslim community during the 2002 Gujarat violence. The report had factual inaccuracies when compared with official records concerning the location of Modi and a police superintendent. However it's report on TV alleged that the violence was possible because of approval by the state police, as well as the then Chief Minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi. But the SIT constituted by Supreme Court found no evidence to link Modi with allegations and he was exonerated by Supreme Court. But that came later. The elections of 2009 happened earlier and BJP lost again. There was another vote for cash scam too in 2008 which was also covered by Tehalka and that too helped in elections.
In 2013 Goa had BJP Government. In November 2013, well before elections were announced, Tarun Tejpal stepped down as editor for six months after a female colleague accused him of sexual assault in Goa. Incident was corroborated with a video footage. He was arrested on 30 November 2013 and was released on bail on 1 July 2014, well after the elections were long over.
Data Analysis
If you had read carefully, it was duly mentioned earlier that BJP started creating data base in 2010 when Modi was not even near central leadership.
Cambridge Anlytica
Carole Cadwalladr is a British investigative journalist and features writer working with Guardian newspaper. Christopher Wylie was a data (mining) consultant with an American company called 'Cambridge Analytica' (CAin short). Wylie revealed that Cambridge Analytica's was unauthorized possession of personal private data from some 87 million Facebook user accounts. Cadwalladr persuaded Wylie to become whistle-blower and reveal ll the facts. Accordingly on 27 March 2018 he testified before a select committee of British Parliament that CAused this data for psycho-graphic micro-targeting to study and manipulate public opinion and political will to ensure elections of politicians and to keep dictators in office.
BJP released a picture of office of CEO of CA with a picture of Congress Party logo hung on the wall.ccxcSee https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/videos/news/congress-party-poster-spotted-in-office-of-cambridge-analyticas-ex-ceo/videoshow/63521924.cms This triggered a series of press releases/conferences/tweets by Congress Party denying any link with CA.
Next day on March 28, 2018 Aniruddh Bahal who had left the Tehlka and was now running a website called cobrapost.com, released an expose that it stung 3 dozen media houses and found that all these companies agreed to peddle Hindutva agenda in exchange for cash.ccxciSee http://cobrapost.com/blog/Operation-136/1029 The entire media jumped into the fray to seek clarification.ccxciiSee http://www.thetimesmag.com/cobraposts-operation-136-exposed-sold-out-indian-media/
What every one missed was as to why news papers were approached for advertorial and not for news and is it not legal to accept payment for it? Other point was that it approached Hindi news papers with Hindutva advertorial. Why it left out Urdu and English news paper and did not ask them for Islamic and Evangelical advertorial. However the above trick subsided news of data manipulation by Cambridge Analytica with a counter problem.
The contract killers are named as 'supari'. To hire a contract killer is to give supari of some one. The journalist hired to give specific results are also called 'supari' journalists. Cobrapost seems to be another 'Supari Journalism' as Rajdeep would call it in an entirely different context.ccxciiihttps://scroll.in/article/706667/'Supari-journalism':-When-Arvind-Kejriwal-defeated-the-Indian-media
Justice delayed
It was a suit between two siblings who had jointly purchased a property some 25 years back. Now one sibling entered the possession, bribed the servants to side with him and told the sibling to forget about it. He further asserted by the time matter will be decided by court, the sibling would be long dead.
Suit was filed on Jan. 3, 2018 and it was decided on Jan. 15, 2019. In every suit court is required to decide what is the dispute and call for evidence if there is contention. In this case joint purchase was admitted but a frivolous defence was offered that plaintiff owed some money and had orally agreed to sell it. Now oral agreement to sell is unenforceable since 2001. Further he did not file suit to enforce it. Therefore why he should be permitted to lead evidence because even if he proves loan, he can not be given relief. Court accepted and granted decree of partition. It must have been a moment of shock for that greedy sibling who counted on delay in judicial proceedings in India.
Delay in judicial proceedings can cost Governments too. In 1999 during Kargil war, India suffered 527 causalities. For transportation of the bodies of the martyrs coffins were imported from USA. Only 150 were imported and remaining contract was cancelled as coffins were heavy.
In 2002 allegations were made that exorbitant price was paid for coffins which were purchased @ 2500$ which when multiplied with 150 and converted into Rupee became 1.5 crore (15 million). In 2004 elections coffin purchase was made a part of central issue of corruption.ccxcivSee https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/the-big-snub/227216
In 2009 around the time of next election, a chargesheet was filed in court which remained pending for several years and ultimately in December 2013 the officials, charge-sheeted, were discharged.ccxcvSee https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/coffin-scam-court-discharges-three-former-army-officials/articleshow/27223807.cms
A PIL was filed in 2004, which alleged that in the aftermath of the Kargil victory, the NDA government had made several crore of defence material purchases in which politicians, middlemen and several foreign firms made money to the tune of Rs 24,000 crore. It was dismissed in 2015,ccxcviSee https://www.hindustantimes.com/india/sc-gives-previous-nda-govt-a-clean-chit-in-kargil-coffin-scam/story-b0FLK0hwcM7Uu2c81KKobJ.html long after three elections had been conducted.
Rafale
RAFALE is a multi role advances fifth generation aircraft capable of stealth technology manufactured by Dassault Corp of France. Indian Air Force has sanctioned strength of 42 squadron which down to 32 squadron. Each squadron consist of 18 fighter planes.
Congress party chief Rahul Gandhi is going to town with an allegations of helping Anil Ambani with 30,000 Crores. How he arrived at this figure is not clear. No paper or bank account details, is produced in support. To counter the BJP released the data as to how Congress had favoured same Anil Ambani between 2004 to 2014 by awarding him Contracts worth over one lac crore.ccxcviiSee https://m.economictimes.com/news/company/corporate-trends/government-lists-projects-won-by-anil-ambani-under-upas-watch/amp_articleshow/66172595.cms
If the idea is to use it like Bofors allegations of which cost Rajiv Gandhi, his elections in 1989, it may be noted that V.P.Singh who raised the bogey of corruption never called Rajiv a thief,ccxcviiiSee https://www.thestatesman.com/opinion/verifiable-trail-1502733309.html/ something what Rahul Gandhi is doing in his elections rallies and press conferences.
Prashant Bhushan (discussed in previous chapters) challenged the Rafale deal in Supreme Court claiming corruption in the deal and called upon it to direct police to investigate. The Supreme Court dismissed the petition with detailed judgement.ccxcixSee https://lawmystery.com/2018/12/14/judicial-review-of-defence-rafael-procurement-agreement/ The election results of States of M.P., Rajasthan and Chhatisgarh declared on Dec. 11, 2018 had already returned the favour to Congress Party where it won with with slim majority in M.P. and Rajsthan. Judgement of Supreme Court was pronounced three days later.
Apparently the plan of Rahul is to use Rafale like West End or Kargil Coffin but there is no payment record or paper trail. Just allegation of Rs. 30,000 Crores scam as alleged on Feb. 8, 2019 in a press conference and called Prime Minister names. In Tamil Nadu this figure rise to become 1,30,000 crores.cccSee https://tamil.oneindia.com/news/india/rafale-deal-is-1-30-000-crore-worth-scam-says-congress/articlecontent-pf327618-330525.html How they arrive at these numbers? No body cares to explain to him or ask him how it was even possible when the price at which India purchased is cheaper than the other country.ccciSee https://www.dailyo.in/politics/rafale-controversy-rahul-gandhi-narendra-modi-anil-ambani-dassault-congress-bjp/story/1/29365.html But then one can not argue with a person popping out only to spit from balcony and then run away.
Politicians rely on ignorance of people. Time will tell if it will work like it worked in 2004. Abusing Modi, since 2002 did not work. He became Prime Minister in 2014. Will abusing him in 2019 work?
EVM
On January 21st , 2018, the newspaper headlines in several English newspapers was about a 'disclosure' made by self proclaimed hacker name Syed Shuja that all the elections from 2014 were rigged as EVM (Electronic Voting Machines) were hacked. Interestingly hacker proclaimed that elections of 2018 in several states, in which Congress Party won were not rigged. As if it was not sufficient a prominent Congress Party Ex Minister Kapil Sibbal was present in this press conference conducted in London via skype. The so called Shuja was also wearing a mask.
BJP's Minister for IT later disclosed that this conference was arranged by Ashis Ray a 'committed sympathiser of Congress party'. The journalist present at the conference distanced from the allegations as it revealed no proof of hacking.
How naive are the voters? Or how naive political outfits presume the voter to be? What shall be next? Perhaps all the hot water geysers in our homes have cameras? Or our mirrors have a camera? EVM is like calculator without any mechanism for communication. If it can be hacked, one has to demonstrate it.
Next day, Congress Party officially denied any involvement with the EVM hacker. According to BJP, it was ploy adopted in advance to blame EVM in forthcoming elections, in which defeat of Congress was imminent.
But Congress leader Sibbal, a lawyer by profession, again held a press conference in New Delhi claiming that the matter should be investigated as 'it is the law that FIR must be registered by police". He conveniently forgot that the informant of FIR has to be a known person not an anonymous person in a mask via a unknown skype call. Lodging a false FIR is an offence under section 182 of Penal Code. Will the police officer who will lodge an FIR which turns out to be false, like to go to jail? Why Mr. Sibbal does not go to police station and lodge an FIR?
The other opposition party, especially the Socialists (Samajwadi) Party joined the chorus to return to the paper ballot. Chief Election Commissioner had to personally douse the clamour by announcing that there is no question of returning to ballot papers.
Does it need to be mentioned that India is pioneer in EVM technology and exports it to other countries? The journey of EVM voting commenced from India and now has VVPAT (Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail) machines installed in 10% of all EVMs so that a person can take a print out of his/her vote. But the print out is not permitted to be carried out and has to be deposited in a box, like ballot paper, to be counted if demanded by any political party. Did any political party ask for this VVPAT count, in any election held since 2014? No. Did BJP raise this point? No.
However on insistence of opposition parties this VVPAT has been increased to 50% of EVMs for future.ccciiSee https://www.thestatesman.com/opinion/verifiable-trail-1502733309.html/
These are only a few of the dirty games which have been mentioned in the above narrative. Dirty games continue on daily basis. But these games premise on the ignorance of the voters. The problem is that the media does not control the flow of information any more. Social media and Internet is accessible to all. Further the majority of population of India being young and literate, it may not be that easy to mislead them with dirty tricks. But one can not be sure as election results of 11 December 2018 show. There is one more department to discuss here that is Perception Management.
Perception Management
Perception of people can do what reality fails to achieve. No wonder so many deceptive dirty tricks are employed in politics. Another method of perception management is use of conventional media like 24x7 news channels and social media.
The 24x7 media which bowled out Vajpayee Government in 2004, and went all out to shine the image of Manmohan in 2009 had completely lost it's credibility and could not impact the results of 2014 despite efforts. The in-effectiveness of media continued when it projected that BJP is losing in every election held in the States since 2014 to 2018 or only predicted hung assemblies.ccciiiSee https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/news/LS-polls-will-throw-up-fractured-mandate-Kejriwal/articleshow/32328001.cms
Now news media is reduced to entertainment. Every voter watches 'his/her' channel to see 'his/her' version of truth. News media now merely re-enforces the belief of a committed voter. Focus therefore is shifted to social media.
While BJP had started a department of data analysis in 2010, with Arvind Gupta as it's head Congress party announced in February 2018 that their computer department had been renamed as 'Data Analytics Department'. Praveen Chakravarty, former investment banker, angel investor and a political economist, has been nominated the chairman of this department, with immediate effect.cccivSee https://www.analyticsindiamag.com/congress-analytics-big-data-department/ We have already discussed the brief honeymoon of the Congress Party and the Cambridge Analytica in the previous year.
So what does these departments do? Actually it deals with perception management. It is a technique similar to the Digital Marketing. It is the feed back loop of the data analysis of social media platforms, which prompts the Dirty Tricks Department or other departments to act or react.
BJP's Arvind GuptacccvSee https://yourstory.com/2017/08/techie-tuesdays-arvind-gupta-bjp-ispirt/ is Electronics undergraduate from IIT-BHU and an MBA and MS (Computer Science) from University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Arvind worked with the core team of NCSA Mosaic (web browser), the same set of people who later formed NetScape. He started in 2010, well eight years ago, the IT Cell of BJP as it's head. According to him:
"...BJP'selection campaign was a very good mix of all technologies. It wasn't just social media but all digital platforms, including mobile and mobile Internet. Combined with advanced use of analytics to decide how, where and when to communicate, the campaign targeted 810 million voters in 543 constituencies across 11.36 lakh (1.13 million) polling booths…."cccviSee https://www.prweek.com/article/1312443/indias-bjp-used-data-analytics-swing-voters
The aforesaid approach is about communication with voters. Persuading them to vote for BJP. But IT Cell is not limited to communication. Swachch Bharat or clean India drive has won accolades from around the world and people's participation into this movement was unprecedented. Even results were unprecedented. The sanitation in the country grew from 34% to 98% in just 4 years? How the idea grew? This what Arvind Gupta has to say about it:
"….On October 2, 2013, almost seven months before the May 2014 elections, Modi expressed his policy to prioritise "toilets before temples"…..."We ran a very quick analytic exercise on what the chatter was about within India on social media. We figured out that more than 45 percent people agreed with this. And, these were mostly floating voters. They appreciated that a political party was actually talking about a vision for India. So, we found a new constituency agreeing with us. However, a section among the traditional BJP supporters had probably misinterpreted his statement as having to make a choice between temples and toilets. Mr Modi had, of course, never meant it that way and was making a point about hygiene, cleanliness and sanitation……...The (communications) team immediately went to work, set the agenda that sanitation was a serious subject, and pushed to convert this entire argument of 'toilets over temples' to 'sanitation for all'. We created much chatter around the subject, and there was so much debate around it that public sentiment turned decidedly positive……..Analysing the online sentiment using social media analytics, we found that the initial support-base of 45 percent went up to 68 percent by the end of the next day."
Thus IT Cell not only managed perception but gathered important feed back from the people. It must be very high time for the IT Cell to have successfully helped in decision making process as well, in deciding priorities. But it is not easy as may sound as it took him 4 years to feed the data before any meaningful result could be obtained.
Will Narendra Modi survive the dirty tricks of the opposition and win the general elections of 2019 on mere Data Analysis?
In Hinduism, the self realisation is to be achieved by an individual four steps i.e. Dharma, Arth, Kama and Moksha.
For a Government guided by Hindu principles, the above principles would be to establish rule of law; economic prosperity, innovation and well being. Are the steps being taken by Modi leading to economic prosperity? Is Modinomics on right track?
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