Campaign has a special role in each election. Campaign contents and campaign leaders are two components of campaign. All the political parties have submitted the list of star campaigners to the SEC for the forthcoming panchayat polls in Odisha. Apart from their senior leaders, parties are seen using film stars to attract crowd.
In a unique step, the Congress has taken some common people as star campaigners along with its leaders. For the BJD, the prime star campaigner is Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik himself who has already finished his tours to the districts before the declaration of PRI polls.
BJP State president is from western Odisha. As a star campaigner he is meant to influence western Odisha voters. The Congress has many senior leaders of repute to campaign against the evils of the BJD Government. Similarly, Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan will prove to be an attraction point for voters during BJP's campaign trail. Prime Minister Modi and Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi shall not join the election campaign due to their Assembly election schedule in north India.
As BJD is scheduled to lead the show, it will be interesting to study its leader's brand traits. In successive elections since 2000, BJD supremo Patnaik is able to win the confidence of Odisha voters, whether in alliance or in solo. The 2000 win of the BJD-BJP alliance, under his leadership, could be attributed to a combination of Biju sympathy and Vajpayee wave factors. But as time moved on, Patnaik was able to establish a "brand" for himself. In contrast to Biju brand, which was "vocal" and "aggressive", he put up for himself a brand exemplifying silence. He seldom spoke to the media and refrained from Press conferences. The combination of simple clothes, bachelor status, use of simple vehicle and sealed mouth, presented him as what is called the medieval "gentle man or bhadralok" image. Perhaps, the majority of Odia people, who are in culture of silence due to generation of deprivation, have developed an aversion towards aggressive behaviour.
One of Patnaik's disadvantages is his inability to speak and write Odia. The Opposition severely criticizes this weakness. But people of Odisha did not listen to it; rather they show sympathy to Patnaik's linguistic inability. The coastal high caste Odias continue to accept him as Bijubabu's son and overlook his deficiency. The Dailts and tribals support him as they carry literary inabilities. Western Odisha has different Odia accent and they do not attach much importance to the issue. The non-Odia speaking people develop obvious support for him. Thus Patnaik's disadvantage becomes a political advantage for him. Due to his fluency and perfection in English and Hindi, youths like him. Eventually, broken Odia and fluent English and Hindi have turned to be a brand advantage for Patnaik.
The third brand factor of Patnaik is his non-attacking nature against the persons of opposition parties. Whenever he criticizes the Opposition, he speaks it in indirect terms. Therefore, he has not developed any personal animosity against any Opposition group leader. Therefore, it is easy for him to co-opt leaders from the opposition parties to BJD. This behavior is perceived by public as "bhadra lok" behavior too. He keeps up his rehabilitation promises when he brings a leader from opposition camp to BJD house. Such behavior makes the Opposition soft against him and makes the voters believe that Patnaik has the ability to pull any leader from the Opposition to his house. Only exception to this trait was seen during the recent Vigilance raid against Dharmendra Pradhan's brother and one has to see voters' reaction on this changed behaviour.
The fourth brand element is the absence of stand on central policies and adoption of equidistance theory from the national ruling systems. Since 2004, BJD has not participated in national Government. He is also not seen in taking stand against national policies of the Union Government, except some local protest against price rise. Such a neutral position of Patnaik makes him attractive for both the NDA and the UPA to use him during crisis in Parliament legislative business. The last example was Patnaik's support to NDA's demonetization move. As he shows no inclination for Central politics, it makes him a more trustworthy and low-cost friend of the UPA and NDA.
The fifth component is the non-corrupt image. This is done through dropping of Ministers since 2000, continuity of Vigilance raid programme against the Government employees, dropping of heavyweights from parties and arrest of crime accused, heavyweight people. This is of course continuation of "bhadralok" brand.
The sixth component is his pro-poor image. People consider both the State and Central welfare schemes as Patnaik's gift. One rupee rice scheme brought him popularity of a messiah of the poor. Though Congress and BJP educated voters about the Central schemes, the latter continue to give credit of the welfare schemes to Patnaik.
The seventh and most important brand component is the use of Central-neglect theory. Some Opposition criticized Patnaik in the beginning, as a non-resident Odia. But he continues to remain in Odisha since 2000, giving up even Delhi visits. As the head of the regional party BJD, he continues to speak about successive Central negligence to Odisha and even proclaimed once that he will fight till the end of his life for securing rights of Odisha. This gives him Odia identify and appeases the voters. Recently, Mahanadi issue bought him one more opportunity to speak on Central negligence, in addition to the regular mineral royalty negligence theory.