Winning Delhi: Part 1 - The Narrative

By 2:00 pm on the 10th of Feb, it was all but official that AAP had Delhi with the mother of all landslide electoral victories. The mighty BJP, on a victory ride since May 2014 was not just halted, its chariot was overturned in Delhi. The ignominy amplified by gloating news anchors who heaved a sigh of relief announcing what they always wanted to, "The Modi wave is finally over"! Not long after, theories were afloat on why BJP lost.

Theories attributed the loss (since Delhi results was all about BJP's loss) to myriad reasons ranging from unbridled Hindutva to a lack thereof. Some challenged the choice of Kiran Bedi as CM candidate, some blamed it on a negative campaign and one article blamed it on discipline hating Baniyas and lazy babus and then there was the favorite, "This is an indictment of Modi govt for its failure". 

It is my intention to dispel some of these theories while focusing on the communication strategy and narrative used by AAP vis-a-vis the BJP. The complete analysis will be in parts touching on the various aspects of the campaign.

Election campaigning is the art of communication. The objective of a good campaign is to establish an emotional connect with the voters, so much so, that they need no further reason to vote in favor of a party. When a party's narrative registers with people, they vote in its favor. The communication strategy is all about identifying the narrative that registers well, the channels of communication to be used and the message itself. These ingredients converge through effective methods of dissemination of the message, set to the narrative, using available channels.

Exploring AAP's communication strategy:

The Narrative:

After the results a number of articles appeared on how IIT-B students helped conduct a sentiment analysis based on inputs from Social Media. Such softwares are not unknown to the BJP IT cell, though I cannot confirm if they were used for the Delhi election.

This analysis helped AAP form their narrative during campaign. What comes out of an on the ground study of voter perception is that AAP managed to register the following with voters:

• Modi is good for a central role, Delhi needs someone who understands their local problems.
• People have seen both the BJP and Congress and there is little difference between the two. Let us give the new guy a chance. [Incidentally the last time BJP was in power in Delhi was in 1998, yet voters were convinced they'd seen enough.]
• Modi ji is good but a strong opposition is important for keeping check on him anyway. AAP, as an anti-corruption crusader is apt and should be empowered for the job.
• Modi ji is for the rich, AAP is for the poor.

The use of this narrative can be substantiated by the news of AAP using Modi's picture on its website way back in Nov 2014. This is also a pointer to the fact that AAP had already begun on structuring its narrative as early as Nov. Here's a screenshot of what AAP had put on its official page.

Among others, this narrative isolated Modi from BJP. With this smart move, AAP managed to avoid challenging people's endearment of Modi while still continuing to attack the BJP. Effectively, anything that the BJP govt at the center did or might do, which created a positive sentiment among people, could be attributed only to Modi keeping BJP aside. The theory of "Delhi votes against Modi... Modi wave is over" does not hold water. The results suggest that apart from a minor 0.9% fall BJP has retained its vote share and the votes that Modi got for BJP, riding his wave, are still with BJP. There's no love lost for Modi. BJP Delhi lost because it did not build up on what the Modi wave did for them and allowed AAP to pull all anti-BJP votes, swing votes, communal voting blocks and first time voters in its favor.

This Modi-BJP distinction opened up the BJP for AAP's attacks with the usual "Saare bhrasht hain... Sab mile hue hain ji... Cong-BJP sab ek hi hain... etc" (They're all corrupt... They are all in cahoots... Congress & BJP are one and the same.. etc). The thing about reason is that it is not absolute, there's my reason and there's yours. While this narrative might not impress incorrigible BJP supporters on SM, it did appeal to the average Delhiites' reason. 

This narrative also allowed AAP to remain consistent with its attack on everything under the sky, not wearing the AAP-topi. The BJP, RSS, Congress, media, business houses, bureaucrats, police etc were all attacked preemptively and consistently, as is typical of the AAP. AAP's perennial victim status was reinforced. The hopes tied to "Ache din" were made specific to Delhi and neutralized. As in Marxist literature, people were imparted "the subjective realization of objective truth". The objective truth being AAP's standard leftist narrative, where people are victims. The victim electorate would readily identify with the victim party.

India does not need to be trained for Socialist expectations. In the 67 years since independence, we've had successive governments contesting elections on socialist promises and running socialist-style economies. Even the ABV led government dwindled between left and right to satisfy all stakeholders. 

That said, freebies never ceased to be attractive to a large section of Indians. Reforms towards a free market economy are still unattractive and short sight is still the normal range of sight for a large section. Revolutionary change and magical solutions to all real-life problems are still romantic to most of us. AAP, like all other parties realizes this, but unlike the rest exploited it in their manifesto and created a picture of the promised land.

The strength of AAP's narrative was also that it was carefully targeted. The 70 promises made in their manifesto attempted to cover every possible social/economic/cultural section of Delhi. While free WiFi appealed to youngsters and most of the first time voters, free electricity and water appealed to the households. The stylishly intellectual middle class was impressed by the responsibility of giving India a strong opposition, thrust on them. Weaker sections believed in "Modi-for-rich AAP-for-poor".

However merely having an effective narrative is not enough. It needs to be taken to people and imprinted on their conscience. In later parts I shall be discussing the communication channels, volunteer pooling and the campaign method combining all the ingredients. Not much can be said about BJP's campaign except that they did not do most of what AAP did, yet BJP's efforts will be evaluated in contrast.

Continued with: [Winning Delhi: Part 2 - The Volunteer force] ; [Winning Delhi: Part 3 - Channels and Methods] and [Winning Delhi : The Vain Challenger! [Final Part]]

(Declaration: The author is a BJP supporter, member and volunteer. The views in this article are based on news reports and on-ground experiences while campaigning during Delhi elections)