The middle part of sandwich

Editor’s note, Ahmedabad, 11 March 2014

So far there’s good picture for BJP.

Poll strategy in India should be like a sandwich.

When sandwich is served, we look at its upper portion. This upper bread is Modi wave. It’s a top down factor.

The bread at the bottom is local level canvassing, hard-work of foot soldiers and election day tasks to be performed at booth level. You can call it bottoms up. This is very important because finally it’s mathematics that decides victory and loss.

The stuff in the middle of two breads is candidate.

India doesn’t elect its Prime Minister directly. Here, voters elect their MPs. In that sense, candidates are important.

For BJP there are certain ‘A’ category seats(like Vidisha, Gandhinagar, Ahmedabad east, Surat, Vadodara etc) where anyone contesting on BJP ticket would win.

But then there are many ‘B’, ‘C’ and ‘D’ category seats too, where party just can’t rely on national wave and can’t field just anyone! The middle part of the sandwich plays crucial role in such cases.

So we saw extensive campaign by Modi in winter, and we most probably may see even more intense campaign in days to come. But for now, major focus is on the process of selection of candidates.

Apart from caste, image, winability, loyalty and other criteria, while selecting candidates for assembly seat, BJP in Gujarat makes sure that candidate they select has individual capacity to attract 10,000-15,000 votes on his own(rest party can add). In last Lok Sabha elections, Gujarat BJP was not at its best while selecting candidates. One poorly selected candidate lost even on ‘A’ category seat. Some victorious candidates on ‘A’ category seats were actually weak and individually not strong. They just won due to party.

Hope, the middle part of sandwich is taken care of this time not only in Gujarat but also elsewhere.

The picture so far is good for BJP, but that’s just the bread on top. The next two levels of sandwich are very important in ‘B’, ‘C’, ‘D’ category seats.

Two more things to add. Though ‘Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat’ slogan has been coined before weeks, the theme behind it has not been effectively canvassed.

Also, the other message which is very crucial but not effectively conveyed so far is that the voters this time need to vote for nation, for good leadership in center, and not for local candidate, caste, religion, area-wise preferences. This message is very important for ‘B’, ‘C’, ‘D’ category seats. This message has to be successfully and effectively delivered right before the polling season.