A subtle campaign seeking change hopes to bring BJP to power

With the Lok Sabha campaign picking up, RSS-backed fronts have begun calling on voters to exercise their franchise in the polls seen as a make-or-break battle for the BJP and its prime ministerial nominee, Narendra Modi.

However, while reaching out to the educated, urban middle-class, which is perceived as a critic of the system, but who are generally apathetic when it comes to voting, the RSS-BJP affiliates may refrain from directly soliciting support for the party or Modi. They may instead couch their efforts as a voter-awareness campaign to urge fence-sitters, who can tip the scales in many constituencies, to come out and vote.

Party leaders feel a larger section of the middle class turning up to vote would be to BJP's advantage. The Congress has its support base mainly among the poor. Also, the increasingly assertive middle-class is conceived to be disenchanted with the Congress-led UPA. However, with the rise of parties like the AAP, the BJP cannot take its once-natural electoral catchment for granted.

BJP leaders said the RSS affiliates had launched campaigns like 'Mission 272+' towards this end. Party cadre was also complementing these online efforts in cities with offline intervention on social media.

"We carried out a voter-registration drive from mid-January," said RSS activist Anil Gachke of the Rashtriya Matadata Manch (RMM), adding that they had helped facilitate registration and verification of around one lakh people in Mumbai and surrounding areas.

"Even one vote can make a difference, so we stress why it is necessary to vote," he said, adding that they would begin another campaign just before the polls to exhort people to vote.

"We are not directly asking people to vote for any political party or person. They are free to choose the best," said Gachke, adding that the RMM comprised people with both RSS and non-RSS backgrounds. He said they had found an "anti-establishment sentiment" among the people and that could hurt the ruling dispensations.

So, without directly exhorting voters to support Modi, they were subtly sending a message to the educated class to vote for a change, BJP leaders said. "There is a premise that low voting helps the Congress or the establishment. So, it's not possible to dislodge the Congress without increasing the voter turnout. The people's psychology is not to vote if they are anti-establishment or against the government," said a senior BJP leader with RSS roots.

According to him, the strategy of not invoking Modi's name directly would help rope in social and political activists who do not support him explicitly, and above all, that would help reach out to the fence-sitters, who form a substantial number in most constituencies.

"Voters are generally apathetic," said a senior RSS functionary explaining the rationale behind the campaign.

"The Sangh is not a personality-centric organisation. It believes in individuals functioning as part of a larger design or system," he said when asked why these fronts were shying away from directly soliciting support for Modi. "We appraise voters on the need for a change and ask them to consider how this can be brought about. We also urge them to vote with national interest in mind," he added.

In a recent RSS Pratinidhi Sabha, Sarasanghachalak Mohan Bhagwat had asked the cadre to desist from personality-driven campaign, saying Sangh was not in politics. He, however, justified the organisation's efforts to bring BJP to power as it was in "national interest."