New Delhi: The 2014 Lok Sabha elections will always be remembered for many firsts.
And among the issues that will figure prominently on that list is a campaign carried out with clinical precision, something never witnessed before in India’s electoral history. And it was this aggressive campaign, cutting across various mediums and platforms, that gave the BJP the decisive and winning edge.
But even as Narendra Modi was busy criss-crossing the country clocking more than 3 lakh kilometres, addressing rally after rally there was a dedicated team of professionals working relentlessly for long hours to ensure that their leader’s mass appeal gets converted into votes.
While BJP general secretary Amit Shah was the most visible face of this team, he was ably assisted by a host of others who worked on Mission 272. Mr Shah, who was in charge and key strategist for Uttar Pradesh, was also shouldering the responsibility for the campaign team.
The task was cut out and clearly well-defined for each of these teams. But clearly it was the team looking at the new-age technology of social me-dia that had a huge responsibility of getting message across, specially to the youngsters and the new voters.
The critical IT team was headed by Arvind Gupta who single-handedly masterminded Mr Modi’s entire campaign on the social media which is now being compared to something that is matched only by that of US President Barack Obama when he ran for presidency.
Even Congress insiders admit that the party was completely taken aback by the BJP’s never-seen-bef-ore social media campaign.
Mr Gupta’s excellent projection of Modi on the net ensured that there were more than 13 million downloads of BJP’s PM nominee on the YouTube. Then sample this, during the campaigning Mr Modi had as many as 13 million likes on the Facebook and close to a whopping four million followers.
Thanks to innovative marketing on the virtual world by Mr Gupta and his team, Mr Modi was one of the most closely tracked celebrity on the Internet.
Another low-profile and key campaigner was Prashant Kishor, who chalked out Mr Modi’s tour plans working out logistics with clockwise precision ensuring that Mr Modi addressed all his rallies committed in one particular day.
BJP insiders said Mr Kishor has been managing Mr Modi’s campaign trails in Gujarat also.
Mr Modi’s personal assistant Om Prakash Chandel was responsible for feeding him constantly with all the political information particularly the scathing attacks launched on him by his political rivals.
This helped Mr Modi prepare a comprehensive political response.
Others who played a critical role were Sunil Bansal, a low-profile Sangh pracharak who helped Mr Shah in UP.
Rishi Raj Singh, a chemical engineer who graduated from IIT, monitored the movements of 350 Narendra Modi raths through GPS which were sent to what is known as the “dark areas” in UP.
These “dark areas” did not have access to either newspaper or television and thus had to be informed about the Modi phenomenon.
