Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) one of the hit campaigns of 2014, Chai Pe Charcha, has become a thing of the past this election season. While the party’s Main Bhi Chowkidar programme has hogged the limelight prior to the 17th General Elections, no events related to Chai Pe Charcha have been slated this time around in Jharkhand.
Prem Mittal, a BJP Spokesperson who was responsible for organising the Chai Pe Charcha events during the 2014 elections here, said on Sunday that the party high command has not issued any directives about holding similar events at tea stalls this year.
“We do not have any Chai Pe Charcha event this time. However, it will be unfair to say that Main Bhi Chowkidar programme has replaced it,” Mittal said.
In 2014, the Modi wave swept Jharkhand and the evening assemblies at tea stalls played a crucial role in garnering support to the party. The initiative got such an overwhelming response that even today several restaurants across the country, including Jharkhand, are being run by the name Chai Pe Charcha.
Under the campaign, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was then the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, addressed a gathering of people over videoconferencing and answered their queries in more than 1000 locations across 300 cities.
The scene at Ranchi’s Albert Ekka Chowk during these events was synonymous with Modi’s growing popularity in the State capital in 2014.
Political analyst VP Sharan feels that Chai Pe Charcha was an effective tool of attracting the masses for the BJP. The Main Bhi Chowkidar event, on the other hand, may not have the same impact as it fails to connect with the people as strongly as the 2014’s events did, he added.
“Chai Pe Charcha was a bigger success than Main Bhi Chowkidar. It attracted the masses and brought them together. Though the nature of the two events is pretty similar, the former sounded more relatable and hence got a stronger response,” said Sharan, a former Pro Vice Chancellor of Ranchi University.
However, it cannot be denied that the party’s Main Bhi Chowkidar initiative received a thunderous response on social media, clearly overpowering the Congress party’s Chowkidar Chor Hai trend. According to figures with the BJP, at least 30 lakh Twitteratis added the prefix “Chowkidar” to their Twitter handles since the initiative was launched and #MainBhiChowkidar was one of the most trending hash tags on social media.
On March 31, Modi addressed his supporters through videoconferencing at 500 locations across the country in his first Main Bhi Chowkidar event. In Jharkhand, the event was organized at 15 locations, covering all the 14 Lok Sabha constituencies, and was attended by the bigwigs of BJP here.
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