Elections 2009

General elections are around the corner and I was wondering about the strategy that various parties would adopt to fight the next election. What I have noticed is that the Congress party has seriously under marketed their achievements. Unless you are a really curious person and wants to know about the achievements of the present government and is willing to spend quite a lot of time searching google or news paper archives for the information, its most likely that one would be clueless about what the present government did(apart from the Indo-US nuclear deal which by the way wont win you any elections any where).  

When the previous government was in power they used to have 100's of ads enlightening the people about their vision for India, India shining, golden quadrilateral etc etc. They had an excellent marketing strategy. They ensured that every single policy they had was highlighted. But after doing all that they lot the elections.  

Thus the question arise, is marketing really necessary for wining elections? I started following various social issues only about 8-10 years ago and hence my knowledge about the stuff that happened before that is limited. I strongly believe that a right marketing strategy would be crucial for winning an election. A huge majority of Indian voters do not have televisions and cables.  One of the main reasons why BJP's strategy did not pay of is that they just concentrated on the small minority of voters(people with TV and stuff, basically the people who belong to the middle class and above), another reason being that the people were appalled with their communal/ hate politics that they had adopted. 

I haven’t seen any ads of the congress government, even if there are its very few. As the cable TV viewing public is a small minority of the Indian voters, even if they don’t come up with any ads it really doesn’t matter. The various debates that happen in TV will get the message through to the urban voter. What really matters is if they are getting their message through to the ruler voter who is going to make or break their election. 6 or 7 months back i would have said that the congress had no chance in hell of winning or even competing in the coming election. Thanks to the various antics of the BJP the congress is back in the running. People in India do not want violence and they certainly wont support any party that is the root cause of this violence.  

Marketing remains the key in this election also. The mantra of marketing is politics is same as in the normal marketing.  Identify your target customers (voters), ensure that your message is received by the loud and clear. I do not think that the congress is going to win this election with a majority no matter what they do now. What they can do now is ensure that their policies and vision publicized in the right places. The congress came into power on the votes of the aam aadmi and they must ensure that the aam aadmi would trust them and believe in their policies once again for coming into power

I had completely ruled out the left from the 2009 elections but thanks to the trinamool unfortunately that is not going to happen. The happenings of the past few months have ensured that a clear winner won’t be there after the elections. What happens in the coming months will be very crucial. History has shown us that Indian elections are unpredictable. This one will be no different.  

Indian Politics

One of the things I do not like about India is the Indian political system. I am not talking about the corruption and various other evils within the system; I am talking about the basic system itself. We have a multiparty system here in India, which means there is no limit to the number of political parties that can be formed in India (of course, there are certain rules for forming a new party). There are pros and cons for this type of a system. The main advantage is that the people of the country will always be in power. As there are many political parties they would try their best to ensure that voters vote for them and hence nothing that will adversely affect the general public will be or can be done. The disadvantage is that no work can be done in the parliament.

As there are too many parties representing different parts of the country, the chances of a single political party getting the majority and forming the government is next to impossible. Hence the new formula in Indian politics is "coalition politics". A few parties which will have a few ideologies in common will join hands and fight elections. The disadvantage of this system is that there will be too many egos. The various parties that form the government would want a share of power. Since these political parties who join hands have only a few set of ideologies in common, when it comes to the remaining issues there will always be confrontation. As a result political stability can only be ensured if the political parties find a middle path for all the issues, which is not always good.

Unlike in the US, where the leader of the country is directly elected by the people and is the most powerful person in the country, here the leader of the country is elected indirectly and is far less powerful. In the US the people elect a person and give him the authority to lead the country. As a result the president is directly responsible for the decisions that he/she takes. Here to get a bill passed is next to impossible.

The main advantage of our system as I mentioned earlier is that people will never lose power. The disadvantage is that the people views can be manipulated by various political parties so that the people will turn against the government. There is far less stability in the government when compared to countries which directly elect their leader. The term "dirty politics" is magnified here. It’s very easy for the opposition to mislead the nation. The constitution of our country is taken for granted. According to the convenience of the people they follow and break various sections of the constitution.

Even though our present system has quite a few merits I feel that very soon the demerits will over weigh the merits. Just consider the recent things that happened in the parliament. Now changing the constitution so that more stability can be attained in the country is not going to happen. I believe that serious studies and debates are needed about the political system in India and a solution needs to be found so that we can move ahead and be one of the leading nations in the world. Without political stability the prospects of development is dim.