General elections in India 2009

Introduction:
India is the second largest democracy in the world. India is a constitutional democracy with
a parliamentary system of government. India held general elections—the largest
democratic election in the world—to the 15th Lok Sabha in five phases on April 16, April
22/23, April 30, May 7 and May 13, 2009. The results of the election were announced on
May 16, 2009. The election was conducted by the Election Commission of India, which
estimates an electorate of 714 million voters, an increase of 43 million over the 2004
election.  Indian National Congress and the United Progressive Alliance, with 250+ seats,
came in to the power giving Bharatiya Janata Party conceded defeat, and showed that they
could not be the single largest party or a single largest alliance.

The results not only showed defeat of NDA and BJP it also showed one of the worst
performance from the LEFT who wanted to create a non -Congress and non BJP
government. The UPA faced its first confidence vote in the Lok Sabha on 22 July 2008 after
the CPI (M)-led Left Front withdrew support over India's approaching the IAEA for the
Indo-US civilian nuclear agreement

Failure of the BJP government and observations for failure:

Failed communication strategy and ideas

One of the major reason for failing in the 2009 elections was there was no dedicated leader
like Vajpayee and there was a total communication flaw during campaigning. The message
strategy used by BJP was not as affective and was misleading to a certain extent. The
message strategy revolved around L.k.Advani and there was lack of futuristic ideas in the
whole campaign. BJP needed a more dynamic leader which can lead from the front due to
which the impact of the campaign was not upto the mark. The biggest loss was due to the
internal fights between the party itself which created a negative impact in the minds of the
people and it resulted in a defeat. The campaign consisted only for ideologies which is not a
correct way for a campaign. The campaign lacked the feelings of the common man and it
also lacked why people should vote. It was rather a confusing campaign. The whole
campaign was between the leader and the ideology. The whole campaign revolved around
Advani's projection as a strong leader which was a mistake. Raising old issues and old work
the campaign cannot be worked out. They ran a negative campaign attacking the
government instead of a positive campaign. Advaniji and BJP called Manmohan Singh a
weak and lame PM and insulted him infront of the whole country. This was not accepted by
the Indian masses who has always respected their PM to some extent being in a democracy.
BJP's whole election campaign was in a mess and there was no mention of development in
their whole campaign. India is getting even more educated and developed and only a
political campaign based on development makes more sense in this 21st century and hope
that all political parties will learn it from this elections. People dont want to be ruled over
by fear and communal ideology. BJP put communal politics in the Indian election map,
Congress has been successful in putting governance back in people's minds. Congress had a
single motto in the campaign which is working for the common people and help them to
grow while BJP did not had any of these messages into their message strategy. People in
India wants now to be developed economically and commercially so campaign should talk
about development of the country but not about the wrong which has already been done.
BJP needs to shed it's image and principle of being primarily a Hindu party. The more they
do in that regard the better off they are. Given that we have a large number of "minorities"
and that most of the new generation isn't extremely religious, they need to become a more
inclusive party. The campaigns were not based on development. For example none of the
TV ads had any mention of development for the country once they comes to power .. they
were more so as negative ads instead of positive developmental ads.

Even the manifesto that was made by the BJP government had all the issues of the past and
price rise it had had the key message of development and futuristic plans for India making
India a global country and the country which thinks for the benefits of the common man.
Lack of youth and in the party also lead to the loss of future India and here is where UPA
gained a great success via Rahul Gandhi. The one innovative idea the party did come up
with in the 2009 election redeeming Indian black money from banking havens and using it
for rural development had an appeal limited to editorial pages. Most ordinary people found
it too esoteric, and introduced too late in the day, to influence voting decision.

The BJP coined the phrase Kushal Neta, Nirnayak Sarkaar which translates to Able leader,
decisive government. The BJP hoped to benefit from the fact that they have been
consistently projecting one single leader Advani, as the party's Prime Ministerial candidate
for more than one year, while the Congress appears to have dual power centres (party
President Sonia Gandhi and incumbent Prime Minister Manmohan Singh). The BJP
intended to use Advani's name & image as the main focus in these elections, this also lead
to a communication gap since it was Advani all over the campaign but no ideas of
development and there was no youth oriented support for the party. NDA failed to get good
coalitions and retain its coalition and it was also one of the significant reasons for the loss.

BJP even blamed Indian government of job losses whereas India had been one of the least
affected from the global recession. This did not go well with the common people because
such a negative campaign was not liked at all. Blaming of economic crisis on the
government was not fruitful for them because when the biggest and strongest economies in
the world were going through recession India was the country which was least affected by
it and Congress got an advantage of it. Recent has exposed the “utter failure” of the
Bharatiya Janata Party and despite its feverish and low-level propaganda its ethics and
morality stood “isolated”.

Major reason for failures:

•Needed a more dynamic leader at the top

•Attempt to move away from people's issues to personalities boomeranged

•At a time of an economic crisis, focussing on Narendra Modi and Varun Gandhi
proved counter - productive.

Hate speeches by Varun Gandhi and Narendra Modi for Congress lead to the defeat in Lok
Sabha elections. On BJP's election slogan of 'Mazboot Neta, Nirnayak Sarkar' (strong leader,
decisive government) and main issues of internal security and price rise, these issues did
not get positioned effectively or there was a mismatch or both to some extent. BJP also
lacked leadership qualities resulting in the failure.

Promises leading to a win:

Promises are the best words that a politician can use in order to gain attention of masses
and the promise which can relate to the common man are the winners. The same thing was
done by the Congress in order to gain a victory. The main aim that Congress wanted to met
was the common man so they extensively communicated in terms of the common man.
Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi said India cannot progress without the progress
of the poor people. He also stated that India will not shine till the time there are poor
people in the country.

The government had promised to work for poor people, Dalits and for the backward
classes.” Congress General Secretary said that the biggest promise made by the UPA
government was that of Employment Guarantee Scheme. Through this millions of people
have been given employment. He added “the UPA government carried out loan waiver
programme for poor farmers and loans worth Rs 70,000 crores were waived. Mid-day meal
programmes for school going children of this country is another big achievement of the
UPA government.” He said that Assam has a sizeable population of tribal people and the
government has enacted a law to ensure their rights on the forestland. He said “compared
to the NDA regime, India’s GDP has registered faster growth during UPA’s rule. And this has
happened because Congress Party has focused on poor people.” He criticized BJP for being
anti-poor and said that this is the fundamental difference between the Congress and the
BJP. He said “five years ago, NDA had said that India was shining but India was shining only
for some people, not for all. That is why people rejected that idea and showed them the
door.”

All these promises and the work done the UPA government has lead to a successful reign of
UPA government from 2000. The term common man is the main reason for the win of UPA
and loss for BJP.

Lack of use of social media or online presence:

For both the political parties it is necessary to understand the effect of online presence
since it is direct to masses and a 2way communication can be established by having online
presence. The objectives can be directly communicated to the masses. The true potential of
the online presence can be seen during the American elections where Barack Obama
successfully used online media to promote his party. The Internet has become a dominant
medium in the daily lives of regular users. Juxt Consult reports 41% of Internet users log on
to the net everyday for two hours or more. And 81% of them ‘Interact’ on this medium,
through Chats, Social Networks, Communities and Blogs. Audience measurement firm
Comscore, in its report claims nearly 60.3% of internet users are present on User
generated content destinations such as Orkut, Facebook, Youtube etc. Further analysis
reveals that on an average a net user undertakes over 15 activities online, and 7 of the top
10 activities fall in the ‘personal life’ domain. These statistics indicate that the digital
medium is one of the fastest growing mediums in the country, and considering the fact that
40% of the electorate is reportedly going to be first time voters, it’s hard to ignore the
potential of both Internet.

Mobile as a media is also not used:

The mobile base of the country is almost at a whopping 300 Million. Studies by Juxt Consult,
an online research and advisory firm reveal that the online medium has witnessed a 33%
growth in all urban users over last year. Using mobile as a tool for campaigning direct
communication is possible specially in the rural areas where mobile growth is on a role.
Using these tools campaigns can be more interactive and direct to the masses leading to a
more successful elections in India.