Brahmastra vs Gung-ho Gandhis

Who are the BJP’s three star campaigners? The official answer: Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh, aka L K Advani, Atal Behari Vajpayee and Venkaiah Naidu. However two of this trinity shine more brightly in the arena of poll strategy and management. It is Vishnu, the preserver, who will be centrestage this time.
Naturally, Vajpayee will be the Star Campaigner — not just for his famed oratory, but also for his Teflon-coated image.While the BJP’s election campaign will undoubtedly be backed by micromanagement, money and Sangh power, it’s evident that the party is banking on Vajpayee to see it back in South Block. Even the key slogans, aired at the party’s National Council meeting last Friday, are inspired by the party’s reigning deity : ‘‘Jan jan ki yahi pukar, Atalji ki phir sarkar’’ and ‘‘Atal aur vikas, Bharat ka vishwas’’.
Advani, who has always played Lakshman to Vajpayee’s Ram, is a sharp contrast to his one-time mentor: While he lacks his leader’s flamboyance and skill with words, his forte is logic as he carefully measures his words and makes his way through the ideological minefield. Indeed, if any BJP leader brings a certain ideological clarity to his speeches, it is Advani.
Leaders like Sushma Swaraj, Uma Bharati, Narendra Modi and Kalyan Singh, will also be in great demand. If Sushma, Uma and Singh are powerful speakers, emulating Vajpayee’s wordplay in different ways, Modi’s speeches have a macho quality that goes down well with the muscular young. The Uma-Modi-Kalyan trinity will make a direct pitch to ensure that the BJP’s Hindu-right constituency stays intact. Finally, Uma and Kalyan, between them, will also give the Brahmin-Bania party the OBC edge it needs.
In the Congress book, there can be only three star campaigners — Gandhi, Gandhi and Gandhi. Nobody is talking of the two younger Gandhis contesting — not as yet. ‘‘That is a matter of larger strategy that we cannot share with the media,’’ says Pranab Mukherjee. But as campaigners, ‘WOW’s’ the word. Sonia still reads out her speeches but speaks fairly good, even if affected, Hindi. She even recited Sanskrit shlokas fairly well, while speaking before the Shankaracharya last year. Priyanka scores because of her ‘granny’s looks’, feel party members. Unlike brother Rahul, who is an introvert, she is completely at ease with politicalspeak.
The other crowdpullers will be Digvijay Singh (across the Hindi belt), Gehlot and Girija Vyas (Rajasthan), Renuka Chaudhuri (Andhra Pradesh), Ghulam Nabi Azad (among the minorities), Shinde and Gurudas Kamat (Maharashtra), and P R Dasmunshi (Bengal and north-east). Says spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi, the campaign would focus on highlighting the NDA ‘misrule’ through a deconstruction of the Shining India campaign, including one against the Rumours Spreading Party (RSS). Foreign policy pinpricks would include the Kandahar ‘Shame’, the Kargil ‘Surprise’, the ‘beating about Bush’ in Indo-Pak relations.
(Smita Gupta and Mahendra Ved)