The narrative of Modi’s campaigns across many states has been similar, as have the different stages that every campaign seems to include.
New Delhi: As the election frenzy in Karnataka drew to a close and top leaders from across political parties wound up their barnstorming campaigns, it became evident that the biggest campaigner of them all – Prime Minister Narendra Modi – follows a very clear, and now quite predictable, pattern.
Whether it is the political narrative, the rhetoric, the intensity level or even the strategies he follows seem clearly laid out and similar in state after state.
A day before Karnataka votes, ThePrint breaks down Modi’s seven-step campaign playbook.
Join the campaign in the slog overs
Unlike Congress president Rahul Gandhi, who has started going on a complete yatra of the poll-bound state in various phases, Modi takes the field only in the slog overs. The BJP lets the Congress drive the campaign and set the narrative, and only reacts to the opponent’s allegations and attacks. But once Modi enters the fray, things change completely.
In the months leading up to the Gujarat assembly polls, Modi visited his home state a number of times. However, he joined the campaign proper on 27 November, just 12 days before the first phase of the polls on 9 December.
In Karnataka too, Modi entered the arena on 1 May, almost the same number of days before the polls, scheduled for 12 May. By that time, Rahul Gandhi had finished several rounds of campaigning, and was heading towards south Karnataka and Bengaluru.
Invoke local pride and assert himself
During the Gujarat campaign, ‘Gujarati Asmita’ (identity) was something that Modi played up several times. So, when Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar called him a ‘neech aadmi’, Modi was quick to use this to his advantage. He called this a bid to humiliate a son of Gujarat, and said Gujarati voters wouldn’t forgive someone insulting one of their own.
He tried to connect with the people while also asserting himself as the supreme leader.
In one of his speeches in Karnataka, he threatened Congress not to ‘mess with Modi’, as it would be in trouble.
“Let’s not deny the fact that he has got tremendous charisma. But the novelty factor is no longer in effect,” says Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, a political commentator, and author of the biography ‘Narendra Modi: The Man, the Times’.
“There is nothing new in his campaign in Karnataka. He campaigned in the 2013 elections too, and though his name had not been officially declared as PM candidate by that time, he had already been inducted into the parliamentary board. But he couldn’t make a difference to the outcome.”
Attack the dynasty
Modi jumps at every opportunity to brand the Congress a dynastic party, and presents himself as someone who has risen from the ground. He successfully used this narrative during the 2014 general election campaign, and this strategy has not changed since.
In Gujarat, he attacked Rahul Gandhi for becoming the Congress president. In Karnataka, on similar lines, he attacked Rahul for saying he was ready to be PM if the Congress gets the requisite numbers.
The present campaign is the first time he has attacked Rahul and Sonia Gandhi on the National Herald case. In one instance, he even challenged Rahul to speak in his mother’s mother tongue (Italian).
However, Mukhopadhyay says: “The ‘Italian’ issue is done and dusted. Referring to it again and again means they know nothing else is working. If that’s the case, it should worry the BJP.”
Choose a local hero or historical incident, and use this to attack the dynasty
Modi chooses one significant personality from the state he is campaigning in, and tries to establish how the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty was not nice to the person and the state.
In Gujarat, he criticised Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru for not doing enough during the Anjar earthquake in 1956, and compared it to how his government rebuilt the state after the massive Bhuj earthquake in 2001.
In Karnataka, he accused Nehru of ill-treating state icons such as General K.S. Thimayya and Field Marshall K.M. Cariappa. But he did so with the help incorrect information which suited his narrative.
“His history is absent-minded history, and it seems to apply differently in different states,” says Shiv Vishvanathan, political commentator and professor at O.P. Jindal Global University. “It becomes more a tactical history than the real history.”
Even previous Congress president Sonia Gandhi responded to Modi’s history misadventures. “The PM distorts history and uses freedom fighters as pawns on his chessboard. Does it behove a PM? Have you ever seen a PM who always talks, but not on the real issues?” she said.
Brand Hindutva
In the midst of all this, Modi subtly brings his image of a Hindutva icon. This is a calculated move, which attracts Hindutva-minded voters.
In the 2015 Bihar assembly elections, Modi never missed an opportunity to remind the voters how the opposition was planning to divide reservation for lower castes by including minorities. It was an attempt to make a dent in the OBC and Dalit consolidation in favour of the JD(U)-RJD-Congress grand alliance. But Modi’s gambit failed.
In Gujarat, Modi attacked Congress president Rahul Gandhi on his elevation as party president without a fair election, calling it ‘Aurangzeb Raj’. He was responding to a comment, again made by Mani Shankar Aiyar, that no elections took place during the Mughal era.
In Karnataka, while addressing a rally in Chitradurga, Modi attacked the Congress government in the state for celebrating Tipu Sultan Jayanti.
Bring in Pakistan
Pakistan has a special place in the BJP’s poll campaigns. Scores of BJP leaders, including Modi, frequently mention it in their election speeches.
Even during the 2014 election campaign, Giriraj Singh, senior BJP leader from Bihar, suggested that Modi’s opponents should ‘go to Pakistan’. The next year, BJP president Amit Shah said fire crackers would be burst in Pakistan if the grand alliance won in Bihar.
In Gujarat, Modi went a step further and alleged that Pakistan was interfering in the state elections. He even mentioned that a former officer of the Pakistani army met Congress leaders, including former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, to make Ahmed Patel the chief minister of the state.
In Karnataka though, Modi did not mention Pakistan in his speeches, but Shah has attacked the Congress for allegedly colluding with Pakistan. This was after the controversy over a portrait of Muhammad Ali Jinnah at Aligarh Muslim University took a violent turn, and Mani Shankar Aiyar calling Jinnah ‘Quaid-e-Azam’ (father of the nation) while addressing a gathering in Pakistan.
Centre’s largesse
In the last leg of his campaigns, Modi brings in the Centre-state relationship. If it is a state already ruled by the BJP, like Gujarat, he talks about how the state suffered at the hands of the earlier UPA government at the Centre, and how things have improved now.
If it is state ruled by the Congress or another party, he mentions how the state government is not using the money provided by the Centre for the right causes and issues, and is restricting growth. In between, he mentions the success of centrally-sponsored schemes like the Jan Dhan Yojna.
In Gujarat, Modi only talked about work done by his government in his last rally in Ahmedabad on 11 December, on the last day of the campaign for the second phase.
In Karnataka, he kicked off this stage of his campaign strategy a little earlier than usual, at his 8 May rally in Vijayapura. Modi talked in detail about various schemes of his government, right from taking electricity to every village to distributing gas connections, to health and medical insurance, to Mudra loans.
Whether voters in Karnataka will emulate those in Gujarat will be known on Tuesday.