The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) publicity campaign for lok Sabha elections in the State may boomerang on the party as the publicity materials do not have the saffron party’s most popular face in Madhya Pradesh, Shivraj Singh Chouhan. These hoardings may damage the party’s prospects in the State.
The hoardings installed by the party in the State display photograph of its PM candidate Narendra Modi and there is no picture of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. As far as popularity in the State is concerned, Chouhan has an upper hand over Modi and in the light of this fact, contesting lok Sabha elections by projecting only Modi may prove dear to the party in the State. Chouhan enjoys enormous support in the rural areas and the party benefitted by it in the recently held assembly elections.
Voters in the rural areas of the State will vote for the BJP in lok Sabha elections mainly because of Chouhan. In the publicity material used by the party, the photographs of former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, lal Krishna Advani and national president Rajnath Singh are also missing It is clear that all leaders, except Modi, are in the background.
During election campaigning for Assembly elections, the photograph of Modi did not appear initially which had generated a lot of controversy. Modi’s photograph was later added to the publicity material of the party. Although barely three weeks are left for the first phase of voting in the state for lok Sabha elections but party state unit has not started its preparations of election management. As far as 2009 lok Sabha elections are concerned, the state unit of the party had started preparations just after assembly elections in 2008.
Rajya Sabha MP Anil Dave had led the work of election management but so far election related works have not started. Sources said Modi’s team is deciding everything related to election management this time due to which state leadership is unable to take any decision in this matter.