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<keyword id="3966854" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="kishore-bhajiawala">Kishore Bhajiawala</keyword>, a Surat-based tea and snacks vendor who in recent years also turned financier owns property worth Rs 650 crore, as was found out by <keyword id="6354751" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Income-Tax">Income Tax</keyword> officials searching his house. 
 
A senior Income Tax official, close to the development, said: "So far information on property in name of Kishore Bhajiawala, his family members and associates worth over Rs. 650 crore has been unearthed. 
 
"Over 50 kg of silver, Rs. 1.39 crore worth of diamonds, over Rs. 6.5 crore in cash and several kg of gold have been found stored in multiple lockers." 
 The department began investigations into his bank accounts, lockers and other property last week, after Bhajiawala deposited over a crore of rupees in his account after <keyword id="3315394" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="demonetisation">demonetisation</keyword>. 
 
Bhajiawala and his family members were found to have more than 40 bank accounts. Sources have also claimed that more unaccounted money could be expected to be unearthed from him.

Meet the Gujarat tea-seller who has 40 bank accounts and property worth Rs 650 crore

<div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right"><div class="image">REUTERS/Danish SiddiquiNarendra Modi</div></div>The most important change in the world over the past 30 years has been the rise of China. The increase in its average annual GDP per head from around $300 to $6,750 over the period has not just brought previously unimagined prosperity to hundreds of millions of people, but has also remade the world economy and geopolitics.
India's GDP per head was the same as China's three decades ago. It is now less than a quarter of the size. Despite a couple of bouts of reform and spurts of growth, India's economy has never achieved the momentum that has dragged much of East Asia out of poverty. The human cost, in terms of frustrated, underemployed, ill-educated, unhealthy, hungry people, has been immense.
Now, for the first time ever, India has a strong government whose priority is growth. Narendra Modi, who leads the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has won a tremendous victory on the strength of promising to make India's economy work.
Although we did not endorse him, because we believe that he has not atoned sufficiently for the massacre of Muslims that took place in Gujarat while he was chief minister, we wish him every success: an Indian growth miracle would be a great thing not just for Indians, but also for the world.
<h3>From lackey to leader</h3>
Government is at the heart of India's failure. The few strong governments India has had--always dominated by the Congress party, a Nehru-Gandhi family fief--have had rotten economic agendas. Reformist politicians--like the outgoing prime minister, Manmohan Singh--have lacked the clout to implement their policies.
That is partly because India is an extraordinarily hard place to govern. Much power is devolved to the states; the fissiparous nature of its polity means that deals have constantly to be done with a vast array of regional and caste-based parties; and a colonial and socialist past has bequeathed India a bureaucracy whose direction is hard to change.
Mr Singh, who was not much more than a Gandhi family retainer, had little chance of doing so. Mr Modi, by contrast, has huge authority, both within his party and in the country. The BJP's victory owes something to good organisation but most to its leader's appeal. Not since Indira Gandhi was assassinated in 1984 has India had such a powerful personality in charge.
Mr Modi has an outright majority--282 of the 543 elected seats in Parliament's lower house. Only Congress has ever won a majority by itself before, and it has not had one for 30 years.
The combination of parliamentary clout and personal power means that Mr Modi has a better chance of getting state governments to go along with him than Mr Singh did. Congress, meanwhile, has been routed, retaining just 44 seats. The joke goes that until last week India had no government; now it has no opposition.
Mr Modi has a mandate for economic reform. Although his core supporters are religious nationalists, steeped in the glories of a Hindu past, it was the votes of the young, urban and educated that won him the election.
They were turned off by Congress's drift and venality, and its preference for welfare handouts over fostering opportunity. They want the chance of self-advancement that Mr Modi, a tea-seller's son, both represents and promises.
His first task is to stabilise a fragile economy. He must clean out the banks (bad loans are preventing a recovery), sort out the government's own finances (chronic deficits are at the root of India's inflation), cut subsidies, widen the tax base and allow the central bank to pursue a tougher anti-inflation policy.
His second task is to create jobs. Labour laws are rigid, land for factories often impossible to acquire at any price, and electricity patchy. Mr Modi must launch sweeping land reforms, crack heads in the misfiring coal and electricity industries and make India more of a single market not just by improving roads, ports and the like, but also by cutting the red tape that Balkanises the economy.
A national sales tax would help here, replacing myriad local levies. Such relatively straightforward steps could make a powerful difference, raising the Indian growth rate by two or even three percentage points from its current 4-5%.
Reaching out to Pakistan would bring economic as well as security benefits. Trade between Pakistan and India is currently negligible, and there is huge scope for growth.
As a leader from the nationalist right, Mr Modi is well placed to bring about a rapprochement, rather as Menachem Begin could make peace between Israel and Egypt. The initial signs are good: Mr Modi has invited Pakistan's prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, to his inauguration.
<h3>One rule for all</h3>
There are three main dangers. One is that Mr Modi turns out to be more of a Hindu nationalist than an economic reformer. He has spoken of "bringing everyone along". But while he has already worshipped at the Ganges since his victory, promising to clean up the river sacred to Hindus, he has not brought himself to mention Muslims, who make up 15% of the population.
A second danger is that he is defeated by the country's complexity. His efforts at reform, like all previous reformers' efforts, may be overwhelmed by a combination of politics, bureaucracy and corruption. If that happens, India will be condemned to another generation or two of underachievement.
A third is that Mr Modi's strength will go to his head, and he will rule as an autocrat, not a democrat--as Indira Gandhi did for a while. There are grounds for concern. After years of drift under Congress, some of the country's institutions have rotted. The main police investigator is politically directed, the media can be bought, the central bank, which does not have statutory independence, has been bullied before, and Mr Modi has authoritarian tendencies.
The risks are there, but this is a time for optimism. With a strong government committed to growth and a population hungry for it, India has its best chance of making a break for prosperity since independence.
Click <a href="https://subscriptions.economist.com/nwcd">here</a> to subscribe to The Economist.

India's Recent Election Gives It The Best Chance Of Prosperity Ever

While marketers around the world carried on business as usual over the past two months, the marketing magic was unfolding over 1.25 billion people. India plunged into the General Elections for the Lower House of the Parliament (<keyword id="6355187" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="Lok-Sabha">Lok Sabha</keyword>) on April 7 and over the next 5 weeks, the dance of democracy held sway over 814 million voters – the largest voting population in the world. 
 The recently concluded Lok Sabha polls featured various traits that characterise all democratic <keyword id="6359191" type="EVENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="election">election</keyword>s – name-calling among politicians, public addresses by top candidates, dirty linen being washed in public and so on. However, this election was special because of the unprecedented and innovative ways in which marketing was employed by the winning party – the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – to wrest the most emphatic election victory India has witnessed in more than three decades. 
 
Here are the top 10 learnings that marketers can take away from the BJP’s impressive electoral campaign. 
 
1. Be clear in your positioning 
The BJP could have picked from a million problems affecting the Indian voters – poverty, women’s empowerment, social justice, equal pay for equal work, secularism and so on. However, they picked two clear pillars for their marketing campaign – good governance and economic growth – and stuck to those two ideas throughout their year-long canvassing. 
 
Lesson: Every brand needs clear positioning and a clear statement that tells you what it stands for. Pick your brand position and hammer it home, so that your users won’t forget it. 
 
2. Don’t let bad karma haunt you The BJP has been ruling Gujarat since 2001. However, the communal clashes in 2002 that killed over a thousand people from the minority community became the biggest blot on <keyword id="6354477" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Narendra-Modi">Narendra Modi</keyword> and his election bid. In spite of being exonerated by the Supreme Court, the national and the global media pinned the blame for not controlling (and instead, encouraging) the rioters on the state government, led by the then Chief Minister Modi. 
 
Lesson: Every brand makes mistakes, be it a faulty product, an oil spill or software that crashes more than it works. Acknowledge your errors and move on. The more you focus on the positives, the less your past mistakes will affect you. 
 
3. Good products support credible marketing 
Narendra Modi-led Gujarat became one of the most industrialised states in India, with rapid economic growth and massive foreign investments worth millions of dollars. The better-than-average infrastructure and improved employment rates are only too obvious now. 
 
Lesson: Marketing can only do so much for a bad product. It’s a great product, backed by smart marketing, which becomes a world-beating one. The iPhone would never have been the phenomenon it is without being a great product, to begin with. 
 
4. Turn the tables on the competition 
Opposition parties highlighted Modi’s humble beginnings as a tea-seller in one of the innumerable attempts to discredit his claims to the highest office in the country. However, Modi and the BJP used this perceived insult to their advantage and turned it into an inspirational saga, gaining support of the ‘backward’ social classes in the process. 
 
Lesson: Every jibe by your competition can be turned on its head and used to your advantage. All it needs is a lot of patience and some creativity. 
 
5. Put a face to the brand 
The BJP’s share of votes in the recently concluded Lok Sabha polls was nearly 64% higher than the votes it won in the previous general elections. And a large share of the credit for this performance goes to its prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, around whom the entire marketing campaign was built. The party successfully built a personality cult around Modi and his achievements in Gujarat. It was a victory for Modi rather than for the BJP. 
 
Lesson: A highly recognisable and persuasive face behind a brand only adds to the brand’s equity. Leverage the power of personality wherever you can. Sir Richard Branson &amp; the Virgin Group and Steve Jobs &amp; Apple are just two examples of the tangible faces associated with big brands. 
 
6. Be innovative 
The winning party’s electoral campaign was innovative in a variety of ways: 
· The BJP held public rallies in 1,350 locations across India where Narendra Modi appeared in the form of a 3D hologram, instead of being present in person. 
· Video ‘hangouts’ where people could video chat with Modi one on one were carried out at tea stalls across 24 out of the 28 states in India, with more than a million people participating. The hangouts were branded as Chai pe Charcha, meaning a Chat over Tea. 
· Out-of-the-box merchandising including jackets, masks, pen drives and Indian bread with NaMo and BJP’s campaign slogans branded on them; also construction bricks with NaMo stamped on them. 
· The brand building continued even after BJP’s victory in the form of a <a href="http://victorywall.narendramodi.in/">Victory Wall</a> on Narendra Modi’s website. 
 
Lesson: Innovation always pays off. Whether it is in your product design, packaging or distribution method, think out of the box for marketing your brand and it will stand out from the clutter. 
 
7. Cast a social media spell 
The BJP and Modi orchestrated the most sophisticated political campaign on social media till date. From Facebook to Twitter to YouTube to blogs to WhatsApp, Modi reached out to voters in every way imaginable. With informative content, share-worthy infographics, funny memes and hashtags targeting the opposition, and direct interaction with voters, Modi did not let traditional media take away the control of his campaign. 
 
Lesson: Social media DOES get you results. The BJP’s marketing campaign and Modi’s social media clout are living proof. The now silenced social media naysayers have only to take a look at the number of mentions that Modi generated on his way to a historic win to understand the power of social media. CNN chose to dub this election as the first social media election in India. The Obama magic was effectively duplicated and surpassed by Modi magic. 
 
8. Identify gaps and fill them 
India’s incumbent government was widely criticised for its lack of leadership, mindboggling corruption scandals and indecisiveness on the economic front. The BJP identified these lacunae and modelled itself as the party that promised a strong and clean leadership with a proven track record of rapid economic growth. Picking a candidate like Modi was the party’s master stroke in securing a victory in these elections. 
 
Lesson: Do your <keyword id="29547" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Market">market</keyword> research well. Understand what the pain points of your target audience are and aim to fill in the blanks as best as possible. People care more about a problem-solving product than for another me too. 
 
9. Nothing beats catchy branding 
All the parties involved in the Indian elections spent millions of dollars in marketing themselves and their agendas. What set the BJP apart was its catchy branding and glib copy. One of its main campaign taglines – Ab ki baar, Modi sarkar (loosely translating as Time for Change, Time for Modi) became a viral hit, with hundreds of user-generated versions of the tagline appearing on social networks, newspapers and television. 
 
Lesson: You may not give enough credit to copywriting or brand mantras, but a catchphrase with smart branding goes a long way in conversion. Don’t just look at the immediate results; look at all possible implications. Don Draper agrees with this line of thought 100%. 
 
10. Championships aren’t won without teamwork 
In a country notorious for mismanagement of its resources, the winning party did a great job of putting together a great team with clear-cut campaign responsibilities. Although Narendra Modi was leveraged as the star campaigner during the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP war room was efficiently manned by some of the brightest brains around. The party fielded qualified and experienced candidates who were handpicked for their past successes, unlike competing political parties that had no real game plan in this regard. 
 
Lesson: Take the time and put in the effort to cherry-pick the right people for your marketing team. Assign clear roles and set measurable targets. Objectivity goes a long way in getting a team to put in their best. 
 
In hindsight 
Political campaigns only happen once in five years. They are like intense 100m sprints at the end of which the winners can catch their breath and rest on their achievements. However, on analysing the marketing tactics employed by the BJP in the Indian elections this year, you’ll realise that the essence of a winning marketing campaign does not change. Whether you’re marketing a political party or a business with an idea, a product or a service – if you get your fundamentals right, victory is just a list of checkboxes that need to be ticked.

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Meet the Gujarat tea-seller who has 40 bank accounts and property worth Rs 650 crore

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