Rebooting India: Realizing a Billion Aspirations (24 page)

Time
magazine, writing that ‘the role of the campaign pros in Washington who make decisions on hunches and experience is rapidly dwindling, being replaced by the work of quants and computer coders who can crack massive data sets for insight’, and calling the campaign the curtain-raiser for a data-driven era in politics.
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No doubt Obama’s 2012 campaign was closely watched in India by the BJP, and particularly by its charismatic leader, Narendra Modi, who had already demonstrated his enthusiasm for technology-based outreach and solutions during his tenure as chief minister of Gujarat. In its heavy reliance on data and analytics, the 2014 campaign that eventually propelled Modi to the PM’s chair borrowed a leaf out of the Obama playbook, albeit for a larger playing field than Obama ever had to contend with. In the US, the voters directly elect their president, whereas in India, votes are cast only for the local MP, with the majority
party in Parliament (or in a coalition) then electing the PM. However, Modi was acknowledged as the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate well before campaigning was underway and ran a strong, centrally driven national campaign for the party, an uncommon approach in India. As we will see, he bypassed traditional media channels to establish a one-to-one connect with the people through social media and similar avenues.

The key issues that Modi and the party chose to focus on were corruption, the rising prices of everyday staples and, in the larger picture, growth and economic development as an engine for driving national progress. Recognizing that the idealism of newly registered voters and the youth would make them a powerful voter base, many of the messages were targeted at them using channels like social media which had a greater reach in this segment.

Much of the messaging effort was handled by Penn Schoen Berland, a leading US-based market research and consulting firm that had previously worked on political campaigns for such internationally known leaders as Bill and Hillary Clinton and Tony Blair. Slogans like ‘
Ab ki baar Modi sarkar
’ (This time, a Modi government) became so ubiquitous that they were the punchlines for a whole series of internet jokes and as easily recognizable as the refrains from popular advertisements. Another tagline that resonated deeply with people was ‘
Acche din aane wale hain
’ (Good days are going to come), reflecting the people’s desire for better prospects.

Every possible channel was used to bombard voters with party messages: TV, radio, print, online ads, bus shelters, banners, newspaper inserts, pamphlets and more, in multiple languages so as to reach the local populations. This carpet-bombing was actually the result of data analysis and careful planning so that the campaign got the maximum bang for its advertising buck. The effectiveness of these marketing strategies was measured by constantly monitoring national and international media, and making tweaks when needed.

Just like the AAP, the BJP also made sure to stay in the media headlines. A textbook example was when Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyer made a comment alluding to Modi’s humble origins as a
‘
chaiwalla
’ (tea seller) at a train station. The normal response would have been for a BJP spokesperson to roundly condemn the statement, and perhaps display some theatrically ruffled feathers on the nightly news debates; instead, the remark became the genesis of the BJP’s media-friendly ‘
Chai pe charcha
’ (Discussions over tea) platform, where tea stalls across the country were outfitted with video links and internet connections so that customers could participate in the discussions. What could have been one of a series of political insults that parties trade amongst each other instead became a major embarrassment for the Congress, and a public relations coup for the BJP.

Given Modi’s fervent embrace of social media as the Gujarat CM, it is no surprise that this attribute carried over to his prime ministerial campaign as well. He was well aware of the one-to-one connect that social media can establish between a leader and his people, and had exploited this power liberally to position himself as a leader uniquely connected to the pulse of the entire state he oversaw. Now, multiple teams were created to run the BJP’s social media campaign. Modi continued to further strengthen his presence on networks like Twitter and Facebook, gathering millions of followers and easily becoming the most visible Indian politician in this space, with over 5 million Twitter followers and nearly 20 million Facebook likes as of today; the
New York Times
called him a ‘juggernaut of political social media’.
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Among public figures with political leanings, he trails only Barack Obama, the Dalai Lama and Pope Francis in popularity.

In parallel, the BJP teams also recruited digital volunteers, much like the AAP did in Delhi, with the goal of amplifying their message across the online world. India272+ (referring to the number of seats the BJP would need to win to establish an absolute majority in the Lok Sabha) was a website set up to enrol volunteers and coordinate their activities, and also functioned as a major channel for message propagation. In addition to the India272+ website, the campaign also used social media to recruit and coordinate a final tally of over 5 million volunteers; the 2012 Obama campaign, by comparison, had just over 2 million.

The cornerstone of any and all political campaigns in India, no
matter how large or sophisticated, continues to remain the political rally. The image of a prospective leader, hands folded as they greet the sea of people who have been waiting patiently to hear them speak, remains the quintessential picture of an Indian election. Modi’s team used technology to tweak this campaign workhorse, scanning the social media air waves and drawing upon volunteers to gather local intelligence. As a result, every speech had a strong local message, and was often garnished with a smattering of words in the local language.

Each rally was converted into a mini media event by the BJP’s IT cell. The speeches were live-streamed on multiple video sites, including the India272+ website. The rallies were also captured on video and handed over directly to TV channels to ensure maximum coverage. Photographs were reposted on social media, and the feedback between the party’s own promotional efforts and the media coverage of each event resulted in a self-perpetuating loop of favourable publicity.

In states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, the BJP’s public profile required a heavy boost. Here, traditional outreach methods were supplemented with such innovations as traveling ‘raths’ (chariots) equipped with LED screens broadcasting a pre-recorded speech by Modi. Party workers accompanying the raths handed out promotional material like caps and masks while trying to recruit new volunteers. Recognizing that political rallies are not that different in spirit from rock concerts (the charismatic lead attraction, screaming audiences and, of course, the interminable wait for the main act to hit the stage), the BJP also staged 3D hologram rallies (a favourite of the erstwhile ‘King of Pop’ Michael Jackson). Equipment would be hauled on trucks to the remotest parts of the country, and a lifelike hologram of Modi would deliver a pre-recorded speech in areas that he was unable to reach physically.

The success of all these efforts can be gauged by the fact that the BJP, with Modi at the helm, romped home to victory in the 2014 elections, capturing an absolute majority with ease. It was technology that made the BJP campaign a well-oiled machine, and will now be the de facto standard for the political campaigns of the future.

Political will is essential to spearhead change at the national level, and so it was that Nandan threw his hat into the political ring, deciding to contest the 2014 parliamentary elections and eventually standing as the Congress party candidate from the Bangalore South constituency. In his own words, ‘Part of the reason I stood for election was my frustration at my inability (in five years at the UIDAI) to convince politicians of the possibility of solving India’s challenges with new and innovative methods.’

He started building a technology team to develop the software that would power his campaign by reaching out to three former colleagues, Shankar Maruwada, Viral and Naman Pugalia, each of whom brought complementary skill sets to the table. Viral had a strong background in technology and public policy. Naman, a former member of Google’s public policy team, had helped to conduct Narendra Modi’s much-publicized Google hangout, and had a keen understanding of how both traditional and online media channels could be leveraged. Shankar had years of experience in marketing and analytics. Together, the trio went on to create a company called FourthLion Technologies—a reference to India’s national emblem, the Lion Capital of Ashoka at Sarnath, where the fourth lion that is hidden from the viewer’s gaze was envisioned by the trio as the citizen, the invisible pillar of any democracy.

The first order of business was to study the turf on which Nandan would be conducting his political battle. The Bangalore South constituency is made up of eight assembly constituencies (Govindraj Nagar, Vijayanagar, Chickpet, BTM Layout, Bommanahalli, Jayanagar, Padmanabhanagar, Basavanagudi), each represented by an MLA, and further divided into sixty-one wards, each of which is represented by a corporator. The eight assembly constituencies (ACs) each have their
own unique character and flavour. Basavanagudi, one of the oldest parts of Bangalore, dates back to the 1500s, and still retains some of the old-fashioned culture of a bygone age. At the time it was built, Jayanagar was Asia’s largest planned locality; its tree-lined streets and busy marketplaces make it one of the city’s more desirable addresses. The narrow lanes and bustling shopfronts of Chickpet house traders from all parts of the country. Bommanahalli is a place of extremes—swanky glass tech parks on one hand, and a large number of garment factories on the other. BTM Layout echoes this dichotomy, housing both sprawling apartment complexes with the latest amenities and some of the largest slums in the city. Clearly, building a comprehensive picture of Bangalore South would necessitate understanding and connecting with the many identities that make up the constituency.

Once these constituency-mapping efforts were underway, we were faced with the next big question: exactly how many voters did Bangalore South harbour? At the start of election season, there were 1.8 million registered voters in the area, a number which swelled to 2 million on election day; no doubt that increase was due at least in part to our strenuous efforts at getting people registered to vote. Bommanahalli had the largest number of voters, around 350,000, while the other constituencies had close to 200,000 voters each. Going down a level, each ward had about 10,000 households, and a rough estimate of three voters per household meant that every ward had roughly 30,000 voters. None of our technology-based approaches for voter outreach would work unless we could build an electronic database housing the voter records for all of Bangalore South, basically recreating the EC’s electoral roll in digital format.

In their entirety, the voter rolls represented 80,000 pages of information that we needed to digitize, with around thirty names on each page. At the risk of stating the obvious, this was a Herculean task, and it took us months to build a digital voter roll whose data quality we found satisfactory. Providing accurate digitized voter rolls that all party workers can access through a smartphone is going to be the bedrock of the party as a platform.

Once Nandan’s campaign began in earnest, it could be divided into three phases. The first was the awareness phase, where more people were made aware of Nandan’s achievements and political ideology. During this time, we also ran a voter registration drive. The second was the persuasion phase, which we spent trying to convince people to vote for him, and the third was the turnout phase, where we had to make sure that people who supported him actually made it to the polling booth to cast their vote. We concentrated exclusively on the issues that impacted the daily lives of the voters of Bangalore South; in a phone call with Jack Markell, the governor of the US state of Delaware, he reminded us of that oft-quoted political aphorism, ‘All politics is local.’

One of the lessons to be learnt from recent political campaigns is the need for a formal, well-organized campaign structure. Usually, campaigns are divided among four major departments: communications, legal and compliance, research, and field operations. The work of these departments is bolstered by technology, data and analytics.

What do each of these teams do? The communications team designs the initial campaign message and broadcasts it through various communication channels, testing its effectiveness and making refinements. In the persuasion phase, the team focuses on spreading the message through all the channels it has access to—print, media, social media, banners, posters, leaflets, billboards and the like. In Nandan’s campaign, Devi Pabreja led this effort; she did much of the research for Nandan’s earlier book
Imagining India
and played a key role in the early days of Aadhaar. The legal and compliance team, which ensures that the campaign adheres to the Election Commission’s code of conduct, was anchored by Deepika Mogilishetty, a former UIDAI colleague who had worked on the legal aspects of the Aadhaar programme.

The research team handles all the polling and surveys required during campaigning. Polls are essential for the candidate to test messages for persuasion, to detect trends in public opinion, and to measure the effectiveness of the campaign over time. A good research
team should be able to accurately predict the outcome of an election well before a single vote is cast. All our work on polling, data gathering and analytics was anchored by Dr Venkata Pingali, holder of a PhD in networking from the University of Southern California, and an entrepreneur focusing on energy analytics.

The field team is often the largest team in a campaign, and is responsible for door-to-door campaigning. Ideally, a field team needs one volunteer for every 100 voters. In reality, that number is closer to one for every 500. Given that the average parliamentary constituency has 2 million voters, a campaign needs a volunteer force of thousands to make contact with individual voters; it is said that the campaign message must be delivered to every voter at least five times in a successful campaign. Our field team was led by Nita Tyagi, a former entrepreneur and consultant with a passion for politics.