The 2019 Parliament elections are likely to be highly managerial and tactical. The BJP followed the modern election management methods during the 2014 lok Sabha elections and is replicating it in successive Assembly polls. Other parties have only followed the BJP to remain competitive.
The modern election management consists of many components such as pre-election environment scanning, SWOT analysis of the political party and its leader , identifying and developing party’s electoral concept, locating the image building domains of the party and its leader and developing image management plans, identification of the voter- segments and development of response plans, undertaking opinion polls and voter-surveys on the poll prospects of the party and its candidates, developing alliance strategy and opposition management plans, creation and management of propaganda and image building machinery through conventional and social media, finance management plans, booth management systems and so on. They all make the poll management a serious target- oriented affair.
During the last no-confidence motion in the Parliament, both the ruling and the opposition parties were keen in testing their numbers in the House. The Congress became happy to get closer to the TDP and might have felt contented with the detachment of Shiv Sena from the NDA’s fold. On the other hand, the BJP must have felt satisfied in witnessing the equidistant voices like the BJD, the TRS who did not support the Congress either though disgruntled with the BJP.
While the BJP is confident of its victory in the next election, the Congress during the last CWC meeting, that followed the no-confidence motion, was found to be ambitious of overthrowing the Modi Government in the 2019 polls through an appropriate State level alliance arrangement. There is no doubt that the Congress shall follow the modern election approaches to achieve its electoral target.
The regional parties, which have no Prime Ministerial scope, have been divided into three main groups. Some are with the NDA or the UPA with a view to participating in the Union Ministry. Their fate in the 2019 lok Sabha poll depends on the fate of their big brothers, the BJP and the Congress.
The second category of the regional parties is like the BJD which maintains equidistant position from the BJP and the Congress with no intention of participating in the Union Government of the NDA or the UPA.
They will script their own luck in 2019 election. The BJD has been using modern election management tools with the operation of an election-monitoring office, conducting of opinion polls , implementation of image-building activities of its president and CM Naveen Patnaik, time to time declaration of Government schemes for its target voter segments and so on.
There is a third group of the regional parties which want to get the Prime Minister post .Possibly these parties shall fight solo or fall into alliance system as their “third front” concept is not catching momentum.
Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh shall be facing Assembly elections towards the end of 2018. The Congress and the BJP shall face each other. The outcome of the Assembly polls shall influence the lok Sabha poll in these States. Odisha, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh shall be facing simultaneous lok Sabha and Assembly polls next year. The regional parties are in power in these States.
The TRS and the BJD had quit the last no-confidence motion in lok Sabha, following the equi-distant theory. The BJD did it right by quitting both, the discussion and the voting, to avoid contradiction. This makes it clear the party will fight the Parliament and the Assembly elections alone. The TDP might form alliance with the Congress if the YSR-Congress joins hands with the BJP.
It is evident that the election cost of the party shall increase by getting into modern election management mode and undertaking numerous activities like surveys, image-building, employing experts and so on.
What about the quality of electionIJ When the parties become more target-oriented, they will be specific about their target voter segments and forget the rest. For example, they will give land patta to the encroachers in the slums who will vote for them but won’t listen to the drainage problems of the urban dwellers who never cast their votes.
In a State or a constituency, there shall be maximum 80 per cent polling. If there is a triangular contest, the winning level of a candidate is one third (29 per cent) of the votes polled and it is half (40 per cent) of the votes polled if there is bi-polar fight.
Sometimes, a political party or a prospective candidate sets up a third player in the fray to create an artificial triangular-fight to reduce the winning-level target. So, the “winnablity voter- level” can be fixed between 30-50 per cent.
Who are these 50 per cent votersIJ They are mainly the rural voters and the urban slum dwellers who are poor, half educated and feudal. They have sub-groups like the women, the youth, the unmarried girls, the farmers, the aged ones whom different parties target through different schemes.
BJP’s Hinduism and anti-corruption propaganda suited this group during the 2014 poll. Use of more managerial approach in election shall result in more wasteful populist schemes and creation of manipulative targeted poll propaganda which are not in the interest of democracy.
Will there be any change in the selection criteria of the candidates who will contest pollIJ Presently, the winability factors are related to the electoral combat ability of the candidate against the opposition such as his / her superiority in money, muscle power, youth power and absence of negative image. This trend shall continue.
With the adoption of modern election management method, one negative trend has entered. Defection, which was despised a few years ago, has become an accepted value now in the name of winnability.
