New Delhi: With just days to go for the Lok Sabha elections, the Congress, which began to rework its publicity material after the Balakot air strikes, has now decided to entirely focus its poll campaign around the Niyuntam Ayay Yojana (NYAY), the minimum income guarantee scheme announced by party president Rahul Gandhi.
The party’s new publicity campaign will centre around the tagline ‘Ab Hoga Nyay’, which will feature in all of its posters, radio jingles, billboards and songs.
“No Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh,” said a senior Congress functionary. “The campaign will be focused around Rahul Gandhi — listing down issues with the tag line ‘Ab Hoga Nyay’”.
The functionary added that it was Rahul who wanted the focus of the campaign to be on NYAY, days after announcing it. He reportedly formed a sub-committee comprising Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Sam Pitroda and Nikhil Alva. This is apart from the publicity committee that was set up over six months back with senior Congress leader Anand Sharma as its chairman.
“Our committee worked hard and had prepared the publicity campaign that was to be launched soon. But then Balakot happened and it was felt that it was not the right time to launch it,” said a senior Congress leader. “And then the Congress president felt we should redo the campaign so work started on war-footing.”
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Due to the time crunch, the party didn’t have the liberty of hiring agencies once again, and so creative people were called directly, said a source.
“It was a difficult task as no one wanted to come on board. A number of top directors and musicians were approached but they refused due to the vicious atmosphere,” the senior party functionary said. “Finally, Javed Akhtar, Nikkhil Advani (director and producer) and Anuja Chauhan came on board. While the lyrics have been written by Javed Akhtar, Nikkhil has made short films and Anuja has done the writing for hoardings, posters etc.”
Going forward, the Congress’ songs, TV ads, hoardings, radio jingles, films and digital advertisements will follow the Ab Hoga Nyay theme and will mention significant issues such as creating employment, providing 33 per cent reservation to women, simplifying GST, demonetisation among others.
According to a source, the new campaign has been approved by Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, while Alva liaised with the creative people. Rohan Gupta, the national media coordinator, and senior leader Pawan Khera worked the logistics and commercials to ensure clearances were speeded up.
“NYAY is not limited to being a minimum income scheme but is used in terms of how justice will be done,” said another Congress leader. “Whether it is for women safety, empowerment, creating jobs, introducing simple GST – the running theme is that Congress will do justice.”
The sub-committee was formed on 26 March to bypass red-tape. “A number of agencies were hired to speed up the process with each being given a specific task,” said the Congress functionary.
The party is faced a lot of flak from several quarters for not coming up with its election campaign even as BJP’s “Abki Baar Phir Modi Sarkaar” was visible across the country.
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