The Modi masks, which will go down in election history as the most ingenious publicity gimmick, are probably the best metaphor for the BJP's campaign in Gujarat.
AHMEDABAD: The Modi masks, which will go down in election history as the most ingenious publicity gimmick, are probably the best metaphor for the BJP's campaign in Gujarat. Modi personified the party, and all BJP workers campaigned with his masks on.
Modi was even the party's main campaign manager. Everything from the candidate selection to the publicity material, BJP's election campaign and had Modi's stamp on it. Modi even okayed samples of the masks which became an instant rage. Made in a factory in China, they were apparently sponsored by an NRI supporter of the CM, and thousands of them were distributed among workers during the course of the campaign.
Even during candidate selection, Modi personally screened each of the 182 names. In the end, he stuck with loyalists, including ministers who faced several complaints from his own partymen. He dumped as many as 50 sitting MLAs, many of them dissidents, and fielded about 100 new faces to overcome the local-level anti-incumbency.
The election campaign too was crafted by the CM. No points for guessing who dominated the campaign; Modi addressed as many as 160 meets in 18 days in the state. National leaders such as Rajnath Singh and LK Advani were reduced to being the backdrop at all the meets where they accompanied the CM.
While the Congress focused on attacking Modi to set him on the backfoot, the CM chose to deftly play the Hindutva card alternately with the development rhetoric.
In the last lap of campaigning, he smartly played the victim by using UPA chief Sonia Gandhi's "merchants of death" against her, by whipping up Hindutva sentiments and blaming the Centre for going soft on terrorists like Afzal Guru.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh did not help matters by offering to re-examine the 2002 riots cases if the Congress came to power, just days before polls. Modi promptly picked up the issue and said he would not allow the Centre to threaten Gujarat. In the end, Modi won with more than a little help from the Congress.
p_tina@dnaindia.net
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