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The Bharatiya Janata Party (<keyword id="14666" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="BJP">BJP</keyword>) opened its party funds for Shree Multimedia Vision Ltd (<keyword id="3259859" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="smvl">SMVL</keyword>). The BJP gave money from its party funds to ‘for profit’ firm SMVL to publish newspaper. 
 
Also, few prominent BJP leaders were either directors or stakeholders in the company, including Maharashtra education minister, Vinod Tawde. 
 
As per a report published by Economic Times, after becoming the education minister, Tawde appointed the newspaper's editor, Dilip Karambelkar, as head of a state education body. 
 
The SMVL directors also have connections with the BJP as either donors or party members. 
 
The BJP gave Rs 25 lakh in 2001, which turned out be a no return on the investment case. 
 
Although the newspaper, Mumbai Tarun Bharat, continues to be published from the 'BJP Karyalaya' in Chembur, Mumbai, the address of the newspaper under the Registrar of Newspapers for India is identical to that of SMVL as given in Registrar of Companies (RoC) records. 
 
ET reported that in 2008, the title was transferred back to Bharatiya Vichar Darshan Trust, which had sold the title to SMVL. 
 
In its 2012-13 balance sheet filed with RoC - the latest available in RoC's database - SMVL shows "nil" business activity but declares a "short term borrowing" of Rs 25 lakh from BJP Maharashtra. BJP described the amount as a "trade advance" and not a loan. 
 
Meanwhile, in 2013, an independent auditor's report stated, "For want of detailed information, we are not in position to comment whether the company has either granted or taken any loans secured or unsecured to/from companies, firms or other parties covered in Register maintained under section 301 of The Company Act 1956." 
 
BJP's Arun Singh said in a written response to ET: "The amount was given as an advance for normal transaction. Accordingly, the amount was shown as a trade advance given by the Maharashtra unit of Bharatiya Janata Party in its audited balance sheet which in turn is merged with the overall accounts of the party." 
 
It is noteworthy that the list of company’s directors include Roads Minister Nitin Gadkari, who resigned in April 2011, but remains a nominal shareholder in the company. 
 
So where is the network, Ravindra Boratkar, a director in SMVL, is the chairman of Purti Group, of which Gadkari is the promoter. 
 
C Uday Bhaskar Nair, another director in SMVL, runs a coal-trading outfit besides two big hospitals in Nagpur. He is recorded as a donor to BJP in 2008. In 2011, he contested assembly elections in Palakkad, Kerala, on a BJP ticket. He is also the largest shareholder in SMVL. 
Likewise, there are many cases. 
 
(Image: Indiatimes)

BJP poured money from party funds to financially help a newspaper. Is something fishy?

<ul><li>The notification, quoting the conduct rules framed many years back, specified that no employee shall in any radio broadcast or in any document published anonymously or in any communication to the press in his own name make statement "which has the effect of an adverse criticism of any current policy or action of the institute or which is capable of embarrassing the relations between the institute and the Central government." </li><li>No such sanction shall be required if such broadcast or contribution is "of a purely literary, artistic or scientific character", the notification said. </li></ul> <keyword id="6364832" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="IIT-Kharagpur">IIT Kharagpur</keyword> has asked its faculty members not to participate in radio broadcast or write on subjects critical of the state and <keyword id="1238963" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Central-governments">central governments</keyword>. However, they can write on literary or scientific topics, the premier institute said in a recent circular. Registrar B N Singh told on Sunday, it was not a fresh notice and the authorities have been quoting excerpts from an old central <keyword id="596745" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="government-circular">government circular</keyword> from time to time for the new recruits who "may not have an idea about certain service conduct rules for central government employees." "It is not a gag order," he said. The IIT Kharagpur notification, signed by the registrar on June 5, read "It has been observed that many a times institute employees are offering their views/publishing information etc in the print/social media. It is true that media is a part of our daily lives.... "However, a few cases are reported in the media which have the effect of adverse criticism of the policies or action of the institute and the Central govt/any state govt/ any other institute or organisation or members of the public." The notification, quoting the conduct rules framed many years back, specified that no employee shall in any radio broadcast or in any document published anonymously or in any communication to the press in his own name make statement "which has the effect of an adverse criticism of any current policy or action of the institute or which is capable of embarrassing the relations between the institute and the Central government." It said that the staff of IIT Kharagpur is governed by conduct rules as laid down in the acts and statutes of the institute. "No employee shall, except with the previous sanction of the competent authority or any other authority empowered by it in this behalf, or in the bonafide discharge of his duties, participate in a radio broadcast or contribute any article or write any letter, in his own name or anonymously, to any newspaper or periodical..," the notification said. No such sanction shall be required if such broadcast or contribution is "of a purely literary, artistic or scientific character", the notification said. However, "members of the staff are at liberty, without any sanction, to publish their original scientific works in journals of repute in India and abroad...Such articles must be strictly confined to purely scientific subjects and should not touch administrative matters. They shall be free from all political tinge...," the circular said. Claiming that no recent development has prompted the institute to come up with the circular, Singh said, "It has been issued to apprise the new recruits about the service rules." An IIT Kharagpur source said, a circular like this is issued from time to time. "However, with the proliferation of social media in recent years, it is important to make those having joined later to know about their responsibilities. "If they refer to their association with the organisation in their Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts, their comments and posts may be considered to be part of their official identity by followers on net, including media. "There is no monitoring as such but the authorities expect them to use their own discretion while posting in social media," he said. SUS MM MM

IIT Kharagpur says being critical of state or central government is against the rules

<ul><li>Unnao, Uttar Pradesh goes to vote in the fourth phase of elections today. </li><li>The key candidates from the Unnao Lok Sabha constituency include controversial BJP MP Sakshi Maharaj, Annu Tandon from Congress and Arun Shankar Shukla of Samajwadi party. </li><li>Of the total electoral candidates for fourth phase, Uttar Pradesh has 18% candidates with declared serious criminal cases, according to the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) report. </li></ul>Unnao in Uttar Pradesh is the country’s <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/lok-sabha-elections-2019-first-phase-of-polling-key-issues-in-all-states/articleshow/68824300.cms">largest electoral constituency</a> voting in the fourth phase of India’s general elections. The key candidates from the Unnao Lok Sabha constituency include controversial BJP MP Sakshi Maharaj, Annu Tandon from Congress and Arun Shankar Shukla of Samajwadi party. Much under the heat due to the rape case against BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar, Unnao, Uttar Pradesh, has been facing resentment by its natives largely. Back in April 2018, Sengar, a four-time MLA , was <a href="https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/unnao-rape-case-fir-against-victim-kin-for-falsely-claiming-she-is-a-minor-1418061-2018-12-27">accused</a> for raping a minor at his place in Makhi village, and is presently behind the bars along with his wife Shashi and son Shubham. The Yogi Adityanath led BJP government, has sent Sakshi Maharaj from Unnao for 3 consecutive tenures. Claiming to be a saint, Maharaj has 34 criminal cases against him for robbery, murder, forgery — including two accusing him of rape, reported news agency <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/sakshi-maharaj-unnao-bjp_in_5cc15940e4b0764d31dcb373">IANS</a> mentioning his election affidavit. Earlier this month, the self-proclaimed ‘saint’ reportedly said those who didn’t vote for him would be cursed. “A saint has come to your door. When a saint comes to beg and is not given what he asks for, he takes away all the happiness of the family and in turn curses the family...This I am not saying, but I am quoting from sacred scriptures. I am not asking for money or land. Those who do not vote for me will face divine displeasure,” the Tribune reported quoting him. Popularly known as ‘Anna,’ Samajwadi party candidate Arun Shankar Shukla has had oodles of land in Lucknow and neighbouring areas. In fact, he had been a prime suspect in a guesthouse scandal in mid-nineties, India Today <a href="https://www.indiatoday.in/election-news/story/corporate-power-takes-on-a-mafia-don-in-unnao-45661-2009-04-26">reported</a>. According to a <a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/top-100-hsbc-account-holders-with-indian-addresses/">leaked report</a> on money held in Swiss bank accounts, Congress candidate Annu Tondon had a staggering account value of $5,728,042 (nearly ₹400 million), as on July 2007. Crime and Politics intertwined Indian politics has had a strong intertwining with criminal charges on its potential candidates. According to the <a href="https://adrindia.org/content/lok-sabha-elections-2019-uttar-pradesh-phase-4-elections-2019-analysis-criminal-background">Association for Democratic Reforms</a>, which analysed <keyword id="456985" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Candidates-with-criminal-records">candidates with criminal records</keyword>, 210 candidates have been found with declared criminal cases. Out of which, 25 candidates(44%) are from the ruling party Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) while Congress has sent 18 candidates(32%) for the electoral process. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 While the Supreme Court refused to keep political parties from sending their candidates into polls, it directed all the electoral candidates and political parties to publish the criminal records of their party candidates via newspapers and social media channels. Of the total electoral candidates for fourth phase, Uttar Pradesh has 18% candidates with declared serious criminal cases, according to the <a href="https://adrindia.org/content/lok-sabha-elections-2019-uttar-pradesh-phase-4-elections-2019-analysis-criminal-background">Association for Democratic Reforms</a> (ADR) report. See also: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/uttar-pradesh-lok-sabha-elections-2019-first-phase-polling-will-see-farmers-anger/articleshow/68820034.cms">Uttar Pradesh’s unpaid farmers who are owed ₹128 billion will express their anger with ballot ink</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/lok-sabha-elections-2019-first-phase-of-polling-key-issues-in-all-states/articleshow/68824300.cms">142 million voters go to polls today in 20 states— here’s a look at the key issues in every state</a>

India’s largest constituency only has candidates with criminal past to choose from

After serving as the Defence Minister in the 2014 BJP government, Nirmala Sitharaman has now taken responsibility in the 2019 Lok Sabha as the <keyword id="6355261" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="finance-minister">Finance Minister</keyword>. A special honor as the Cabinet Minister conferred upon a lady twice by Shri Narendra Modi’s government, she has deserved such high postings due to her sharp acumen, dedication and talents. While the whole country is eagerly waiting to see her performance as the Finance Minister this time, here are a few interesting facts about Nirmala Sitharaman worth knowing. Second Woman Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman was the second woman in India to become the defense Minister after Indira Gandhi and the first one to hold this office full time. She is the 33rd defense minister of the Indian Republic and the 26th person to assume this office. First full-time Woman Finance Mininster She will be now the first woman in India to hold the office as the full-time finance minister. Earlier when Indira Gandhi held this position for a brief time between 1970 and 71, she managed this department as the additional charge while serving the country as the Prime Minister. Worked with PWC in London Born and brought up in Tamil Nadu, she completed her graduation from Seethalakshmi Ramaswami College, Tiruchirapalli and did her masters in Economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi. After marrying Parakala Prabhakar in 1986, she moved to London with her husband. She worked as the Senior Manager (Research and Analysis) with Price Waterhouse and was also associated with the BBC for some time. Joined BJP in 1991 In 1991, Nirmala Sitharaman returned to India and became BJP’s spokesperson under Ravi Shankar Prasad. In 2006, she joined the BJP and rose in popularity in the party when Nitin Gadkari was the BJP President. Got Married to Parakala Prabhakar in 1986 For the first time, she met Parakala Prabhakar at the JNU and later married him in 1986. Parakala Prabhakar hailed from a pro-Congress family. While his mother was a Congress MLA in Andhra Pradesh, his father was a minister in the Congress government in Andhra Pradesh. Worked as a sales girl in London Before joining the Price Waterhouse in London, she worked as a sales girl for a brief period with Habitat, a Home Décor Store at London’s Regent Street. She recorded the highest sales in Christmas which won her the appreciation of the store management. She decided to come back to India along with her husband only for the birth of their daughter as the couple was keen to raise their daughter only in India. When their family settled in Hyderabad, she established a school for underprivileged children in the city clubbed with a policy research centre. Served as a member of National Commission for Women An active representative of the woman community, she has been taking a lot of interest in the subject of women empowerment. She served as the member of the National Commission for Women from 2003 to 2005. She is fond of Music Nirmala Sitharaman likes classical music so much and has a good collection of classical songs with her to listen to them from time to time. She is an ardent devotee of Lord Krishna. She spends three hours a day reading Newspapers. She is not so fluent in Hindi though her command over the English language is exceptional.

Interesting facts about Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman that you should know

NEW DELHI: Less than a five-minute drive from the Ashoka Road headquarters of BJP, where the old guard is losing ground to the new, <keyword id="47100" type="PERSON" weightage="40" keywordseo="Atal-Bihari-Vajpayee">Atal Bihari Vajpayee</keyword> sits quietly in a wheelchair in his SPG-guarded Krishna Menon Marg bungalow watching snatches of television and reading newspaper headlines. 
 The master orator, who was silenced by a stroke in 2009, cannot grasp either the small print or the big picture of what's happening within the party he nurtured. The three-time <keyword id="71" type="POSITION" weightage="40" keywordseo="Prime-Minister">Prime Minister</keyword> — last between 1999 and 2004 — bid adieu to active politics almost a decade ago. Now, as Modi — whom he'd wanted removed as Gujarat <keyword id="5269" type="POSITION" weightage="40" keywordseo="Chief-Minister">chief minister</keyword> after the Godhra riots of 2002 — tightens his hold over BJP, some of his close friends and followers are feeling slighted or pushed to the wall. 
 Unlike the good old days, no one comes calling on him with complaints about the party or to listen to his poetry. The only regular visitors are N M Ghatate, Vajpayee's friend of nearly six decades, L K Advani and B C Khanduri (the general-turned-politician who was chief minister of <keyword id="44522" type="CITY" weightage="40" keywordseo="Uttarakhand">Uttarakhand</keyword>), who come to sit by his side or ask daughter Namita about his health. 
 Ghatate who visits him almost every week, sometimes even twice, says, "Prime Minister <keyword id="6359397" type="PERSON" weightage="40" keywordseo="Manmohan-Singh">Manmohan Singh</keyword> makes regular inquiries about his health and never misses wishing Vajpayeeji personally on his birthday." The two, Ghatate says, have an old association. Ghatate remembers how then PM PV <keyword id="6358441" type="PERSON" weightage="40" keywordseo="Narasimha-Rao">Narasimha Rao</keyword> called Vajpayee to complain that his <keyword id="6355261" type="POSITION" weightage="40" keywordseo="Finance-minister">finance minister</keyword> Manmohan Singh had taken criticism of his budget by the opposition to heart and had offered to resign. 
 During a career spent mostly in opposition, Vajpayee had criticized everyone, from <keyword id="6383869" type="PERSON" weightage="40" keywordseo="Nehru">Nehru</keyword> to his daughter <keyword id="5513" type="PERSON" weightage="40" keywordseo="Indira">Indira</keyword>, but never realized it could hurt someone so much. Ghatate says Vajpayee immediately called Singh and told him not to take such comments to heart as they were meant to score political points. The Rao government was saved an embarrassment, and a new friendship was forged. 
 Ghatate says Vajpayee is still mentally alert. "But the stroke he suffered does not let him speak." Till then, he'd kept himself busy with books and writing. Within two months of the 2004 electoral defeat, he wrote a four-page article on the successful NDA coalition experiment and how even <keyword id="1575" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="40" keywordseo="Congress">Congress</keyword> had to fall in line; he argued that coalitions were here to stay. 
 
A better part of Vajpayee's day, Ghatate says, is spent with physiotherapists, doctors and nurses. "I go there and just watch him or talk to family members. He understands everything but cannot have a conversation," he says. Vajpayee's favourite food — Chinese and prawns — is now served only in small portions. 
 
 
 Advani, who was <keyword id="230854" type="POSITION" weightage="40" keywordseo="deputy-PM">deputy PM</keyword> in the last NDA government, is reported to have wistfully told some people that Vajpayee would consult him on "everything". When asked if BJP leaders still asked him for advice, he is believed to have replied, cryptically, "When they need to." 
 
For Ghatate, who first met him in the 1950s, the sight of the silent statesman is heart-rending. Vajpayee, who had known Ghatate's father, Babasaheb Ghatate, a senior Hindu Mahasabha leader, took the young law student under his wing in Delhi and treated him like a younger brother. 
 
Of all the things that the protracted illness has taken away, Ghatate misses Vajpayee's sense of humour the most. When Ghatate gave him the news of the death of JN Dixit, Manmohan Singh's first national security advisor, Vajpayee said, "He was a good man. His problem was he used to work hard and worry a lot about the consequences." Ghatate pointed out Vajpayee's NSA and Dixit's predecessor Brajesh Mishra was also hard working, to which Vajpayee retorted with a mischievous smile, "Yes, Brajesh too was hard working, but then I had to worry about the consequences," Ghatate recounted this to Mishra and the two had a good laugh. 
 
Ghatate has been busy compiling Vajpayee's jokes and witticisms into a book. He has so far collected about 80; he knows there are many more out there.

A Peek Into The Life Atal Bihari Vajpayee Now Leads

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.

10 Lessons That The Lok Sabha Polls Taught The Marketers

NEW DELHI: As if the burden of incumbency wasn’t enough, <keyword id="1575" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="Congress">Congress</keyword>'s task in the current <keyword id="6355187" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="40" keywordseo="Lok-Sabha">Lok Sabha</keyword> polls seems to have been further complicated by what party managers claim is a severe funds crunch, which has put it at a further disadvantage vis-a-vis a resurgent BJP. 
 
A Congress heavyweight told this paper, “Between Congress and BJP, they are getting 90% of the money, we are getting just 10%.” Even if that sounds like a bit of an exaggeration, conversations with Congress candidates and their managers over the past week indicate that the ruling party has, for a change, been vastly outgunned by the BJP, and may actually be running on half-empty. 
 
“I have seen several Lok Sabha and assembly elections, but the financial deficit Congress is facing this time is unprecedented,” says a veteran Congress MP. 
 
Saffron is daubed all over – on billboards, bus stand shelters, kiosks and newspapers – forming the backdrop to the smiling visage of Narendra Modi. When you don’t see him, you hear him on the radio and on your phone. Indeed, rarely has the country seen such an election advertising blitz. 
 In comparison, the Congress appears in bits and patches. <keyword id="5268" type="PERSON" weightage="40" keywordseo="Rahul-Gandhi">Rahul Gandhi</keyword>, with several aam admi and aurat in tow, stands defensively with his hands folded on billboards, which are few and far between. 
 
Party managers in states like Chhattisgarh, Punjab and Maharashtra say the money this time is well below normal. The big donors – industrialists and other sundry moneybags – appear to have divined which way the wind is blowing. And their money is flowing in that direction. 
 While Congress claims the gap is due to big business's proximity to Modi – there are stories of how at least two houses are backing him to the hilt – those familiar with the business of campaign finance say <keyword id="46431" type="CITY" weightage="40" keywordseo="India-Inc">India Inc</keyword> makes a cold-blooded assessment of the prospects of different contenders, more so in this era of coalitions and diverse polity when different parties are at the helm in different states and smaller parties enjoy disproportionate clout in decision-making. So the money is distributed after calculating who needs to be kept happy where. 
 
 
 
Congress’s own success in the UPA years bears testimony to this. The party, which won in 2004 ostensibly because of a backlash against BJP’s ‘India Shining’ pitch – shorthand for pro-business – and zealously pursued its aam aadmi plank, pulled in more funds than the BJP in the last decade. 
 
According to income tax returns filed by the two parties and analyzed by Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), Congress’ income in 2004-05, the year UPA-1 was formed, was Rs 222 crore against BJP’s Rs 104 crore. Ever since, the ruling party’s coffers have swelled and its total income in the eight years till 2011-12, the latest for which I-T returns are available, was Rs 2,338 crore. During the eight-year period, BJP received Rs 1,303 crore. The big two were followed by CPM with an income of Rs 520 crore and BSP with around Rs 500 crore. 
 
This story seems to have changed. Congress veterans in Uttar Pradesh say flow of funds from the party is down almost 30% this time. The party typically sends one-fourth of the amount by cheque to the candidate’s account. The rest comes in cash; this is mainly directed towards winnable seats. Said a sitting MP from Maharashtra: “The well-off candidates can make do without leaning on the party, but the others are badly hamstrung this time.” 
 
Leading business houses, and sectors that are flush with cash like real estate and mining, are this time almost fully behind the BJP. Half of the 48 Congress-NCP candidates in Maharashtra that TOI spoke to admitted as much. A top builder told this paper, “Most of us are very unhappy with the (Maharashtra) government. In the last three years, hardly any projects have been cleared.” 
 
The paucity of funds is apparent from the delay in their disbursal. In 2009, “official” financial assistance came immediately after the names of candidates were announced. This year, the party candidates in Western UP – which goes to the polls in the first three rounds – have had to wait till the last date of withdrawal before receiving any assistance. 
 
In the December assembly polls, sources said the central leadership gave Rs 60 lakh for most seats in Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, while Delhi and Rajasthan had Congress governments which took care of the candidates. 
 
Partymen in Chhattisgarh say only two seats are likely to see “extra and special” financial help. There was fond hope that the party would give funds to individual seats at par with what was given in 2009, with a hike based on five years of inflation – Rs 1 crore per seat. Nothing has come yet. The anxiety stems from the fact that Congressmen are up against candidates being supported by three-time chief minister Raman Singh who is flush with funds and has the backing of industrialists. 
 Most leaders in resource-rich Punjab are said to be capable of self-financing yet party money matters in the fight against Akali Dal. A senior leader confessed “it will be like this” – which means that expectations of central <keyword id="6357455" type="EVENT" weightage="40" keywordseo="Funding">funding</keyword> have to be lowered this time. 
 
The most curious case is the financial powerhouse of Maharashtra. Though Congress has been in government in Mumbai for 15 years, a party leader confessed, “Even we are feeling it.” The state has traditionally done without central funding, but this time candidates are having to canvas support personally and even ask resourceful colleagues for help. 
 
In the 2009 Lok Sabha and assembly polls, most Congress nominees had received a healthy financial boost from the party; some figures put it at Rs 50 lakh per candidate. Not this time. 
 
UP Congress leaders say Congress follows a standard system for fund distribution here. Constituencies are graded ‘A’, ‘B’ or ‘C’, depending on the strength of a candidate and the seat’s winnability, ‘A’ being the strongest and ‘C’ the weakest. Funds are then allotted accordingly. 
 
Congressmen say the party has released up to Rs 50 lakh for seats like Ghaziabad and Saharanpur – both ‘A’ grade seats. Bigger electoral fights like Lucknow and Varanasi are expected to attract more funds – up to Rs 3-4 crore. 
 
In all this, Congress leaders say, the worst affected would be states like Tamil Nadu where the party has no hope this election after its failure to find a strong ally. Given the dismal state of affairs, TN candidates are not only low on the central leadership’s list of priorities, they unable to find sponsors even locally. 
 
In Karnataka, it’s different. Several Congress candidates have intensified their campaign minus any financial support from the party. But they aren’t complaining. “Gone are the days when we used to get an assured sum from the party. Now there is an unwritten rule in the party that candidates have to fight elections on their own. We are not sure whether it’s because of a funds crunch or any other reason,” says a party candidate, who is fighting his second successive Lok Sabha polls. 
 
(With inputs from Swati Mathur in Lucknow, Prafulla Marpakwar in Mumbai, Naheed Ataullah in Bangalore, Joseph John in Raipur and Jairaj Sivan in Chennai)

Congress Candidates Aren’t Getting Much Money From The Party

In 1906, in a lodging house for Indian students in Highgate, a pleasant area of north London, a young lawyer called Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi dropped in on a law student called Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, who happened to be frying prawns at the time. Savarkar offered Gandhi some of his meal; Gandhi, a vegetarian, refused. Savarkar allegedly retorted that only a fool would attempt to resist the British without being fortified by animal protein.
The meeting is said to have begun hostilities between the two young Indian nationalists; whether or not the story is apocryphal, there were real reasons for antipathy.
The two men had very different approaches to the struggle against Britain. Gandhi, who became leader of the Indian National Congress (INC), was a pacifist with an inclusive attitude towards Muslims and Christians. Savarkar, who would lead the Hindu Mahasabha, was a right-wing majoritarian who spawned the idea of hindutva, or Hindu-ness--the belief that the Hindu identity is inseparable from the Indian identity. Congress eclipsed the Mahasabha and, since history belongs to the victors, the story of India's independence movement became one of non-violence. But the strand of thought that Savarkar represented was more important than is generally recognised, and is enjoying a revival.
A member of the Mahasabha broke away to form the paramilitary Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), or national volunteer organisation, in 1925, modelled, some say, on the British army. A social rather than explicitly political organisation, it presented itself as the world's largest non-governmental group, in which like-minded, khaki-uniformed men could gather for dawn calisthenics. It recruited boys at an impressionable age, as the Jesuits did, the better to inculcate them with discipline and with passion for the cause. One such was the eight-year-old Narendra Modi. The future prime minister attended training sessions with the RSS, was subsequently inducted as a cadet, and in 1985 was assigned by the RSS to its political wing, the Bharatiya Janata Party, which he rose to lead.
Mr Modi is India's strongest leader since Indira Gandhi, and its most controversial. The source of controversy is his failure in 2002, when chief minister of Gujarat, to avert a massacre of Muslims, which opponents attribute to a hostility to Muslims born of the ideology that Savarkar spawned. Mr Modi has never apologised for the massacre, though he said last year that he felt regret over them, as he would at seeing a puppy run over in the street. Nor has he made any attempt to distance himself from the RSS.
The RSS, meanwhile, is becoming more overtly political. Mohan Bhagwat, its current leader, is somewhat in the mould of Savarkar, paraphrasing his beliefs and promoting Hindutva. In August this year Mr Bhagwat directly echoed Savarkar by saying all who live in "Hindustan" are in fact Hindus, whatever Muslims, Christians or secular Hindus might say. More striking, the RSS leader has switched the organisation's methods. Now, far from eschewing party politics, the group has become an enthusiastic and effective actor within it. The RSS's millions of members and volunteers (no one knows just how many active ones there really are) played a big role in electing the BJP by a landslide in 2014. At least 19 ministers in government, including Mr Modi, have a background in the RSS. Its leaders are seconded to senior posts in the party too. So the ideas of the man who inspired the RSS matter more than ever before.
<h3>The naked jumper</h3>
The lawyer described by a British official in 1906 as "a small man with an intelligent face and a nervous manner" does not sound like the muscular hero that Indian nationalists crave, but Savarkar clearly had a certain dash. In 1910, while he was in London, he was charged with conspiring to wage war against the king and with providing weapons used to assassinate a Briton in the Indian civil service, sentenced to two life terms--50 years--in jail and sent back to India. While the steamship "Morea" was berthed in Marseille harbour, he slipped away from his guards, leapt, almost naked, into the sea and swam ashore. Unfortunately for the eulogists, he was promptly caught by French police and bundled back to the ship.
His daring did, however, win him fame, and also created legal history. France's government, annoyed that Britain had overseen an arrest on its territory, wanted Savarkar returned. Britain refused so the matter went to the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague. It ruled his arrest was indeed "irregular", but decided Savarkar might as well stay in India. The case was one of the earliest heard by the tribunal.
Savarkar's next stop was the Andaman Islands--a group of islands in the Bay of Bengal. This palm-fringed tropical paradise served as a penal colony for the British. Cellular Jail in the capital, Port Blair, is now a memorial for freedom campaigners. In a park opposite stands a row of statues of independence heroes. One is of a slender man with a pinched face behind round spectacles. A pen protrudes from his jacket pocket, one hand rests on a part-furled umbrella and the other wags a finger at the sky. You might mistake him for a prissy bank manager, but a plaque identifies him as Vinayak Damodar Savarkar. The park is named after him.
Ranjit Savarkar, his great-nephew, who runs the Savarkar trust, says that he showed great fortitude in jail. A trained yogi, he overcame thoughts of suicide. Other inmates nicknamed him "Barrister Babu", for his London legal training. Already a published historian and poet, he used Cellular Jail to work on his writing--literally: he wrote on its walls. He spent a decade there before being moved to the mainland in 1921. He was subsequently freed, after pledging to keep out of politics--a promise which the ideology he was developing in jail suggests he did not intend to keep.
A fierce nationalist, he adored Guiseppe Mazzini, who fought for the unification of Italy, writing about him in the hope of inspiring resistance to the British in India. Savarkar believed that India is really composed of, and must only be run by, Hindus. In his 1924 book, "Hindutva", he drew on cultural, philosophical and religious practices of ancient Hinduism, a rich faith that allows immense variety in how it is followed. But he also distinguished the ideology of hindutva--an attempt to unite disparate Hindus in a political project--from the religion. He himself was an atheist, and disapproved of aspects of traditional Hindu belief, dismissing cow worship as superstitious--a stance that would upset many today. He was an early outspoken opponent of caste discrimination. In the 1920s and 1930s others among the emerging Indian political elite opposed "untouchability", the rejection as sub-human of those considered "below caste". But Savarkar went further, saying modern India should drop altogether the idea of dividing people by caste.
His attitude towards Muslims, who made up a quarter of the population before partition, and other non-Hindus was less liberal. He regarded them as alien and separate, in effect not as real Indians. He was fiercely opposed to the formation of Pakistan and what his great-nephew calls the "appeasement" of Muslims. He believed that they, along with the Europeans, had crushed Hindus for a millennium--a sentiment echoed by Mr Modi in an address to parliament after his election this year, when he spoke of ending "1,200 years of slave mentality" in India.
Aside from his view of Muslims, the big difference between Savarkar and the nationalists in the INC lay in their contrasting attitudes to violence. He also wrote one of the first Indian accounts of the uprising in 1857, centred in Delhi. Known as the "Mutiny" to the British, it is referred to by many Indians as the "first war of independence"--echoing the title of Savarkar's book, "The Indian War of Independence". It was a gruesome episode, in which hundreds of thousands were killed, but Savarkar was untroubled by the violence, and seemed to justify the murders of British women and children. His works are steeped in a desire for revenge against those who have humiliated Hindus, and his frustration with the passivity of his co-religionists: "I want all Hindus to get themselves re-animated and re-born into a martial race." In his early years, he circulated manuals on bomb making. He approved of--and probably assisted in--the assassination of colonial administrators. He was suspected, for example, of encouraging a student radical who shot dead Sir Curzon Wyllie, a government official, one summer night on a Kensington street in 1909.
<h3>Rewriting history</h3>

Today, some Indians adulate him. On the day your correspondent called in at Cellular Jail, a party of jovial men in their 80s and 90s, an official "Eminent Committee of Freedom Fighters", was also visiting. Among the last surviving veterans who battled the British in the Quit India movement in the 1940s, they raised gnarled fists to chant "Jai Hind", posed for pictures and praised Savarkar as strong. The local MP called veer (brave) Savarkar a "ferocious, dangerous man who frightened off the British". Rashida Iqbal, the jail's curator, assessed him as "one of the most important freedom fighters". Port Blair's airport, like the park, bears his name. Some 2,000km away, in his native Maharashtra, a street and a park in Mumbai also each carry his name. (In London a blue plaque identifies his former home in Highgate.)
Savarkar's enthusiasm for violence sits uncomfortably with conventional ideas of how India got its independence. India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and then the Congress party (successor to the INC) promoted a pacifist narrative of history, the idea that Gandhi and the likes of B.R. Ambedkar, a social reformer who inspired the Modern Buddhist Movement, triumphed through non-violent resistance. That meant downplaying the bloodshed of 1857, in which atrocities were perpetrated by both sides, and also the roles of Savarkar, Subhas Chandra Bose and Vallabhbhai Patel.
Bose, the Bengali leader of an Indian National Army against the British in the second world war and an ally of Hitler and imperial Japan, led some 40,000 soldiers against the British. (He didn't get far, though the Japanese briefly handed him control of the Andamans.) Patel, the "Iron Man of India", had the Bismarckian task of uniting the country. He oversaw the integration of 562 princely states into India, threatening and using military force. Operation Polo in 1948, a five-day conquest of Hyderabad, a wealthy and Muslim-run state in the south, was bloody indeed. Official estimates, only made public in 2013, suggest the fighting and subsequent Hindu-Muslim clashes there killed between 27,000 and 40,000 people. Some historians claim the real toll might have been five times higher.
The way the story of Indian independence is told is beginning to change. Mr Modi and the BJP are keen to celebrate muscular, nationalist figures. Patel is likely to have a much higher profile in future: in the national budget, in July 2014, the government set aside $32m to erect a statue of him in Gujarat, twice the size of the Statue of Liberty, by 2018. And while Mr Modi frequently invokes Gandhi's name and beliefs, he refers almost as often to Swami Vivekananda, a 19th-century nationalist who revived Hinduism and promoted it abroad. Mr Modi is said to be named after him (the swami was originally called Narendra Nath Datta) and frequently poses before his photograph. Vivekananda's ideas on invigorating Hinduism foreshadowed Savarkar's hindutva project.
Savarkar's profile is lower, but is also rising. Educational comics, hagiographies and patriotic films retell parts of his life story. In 2008 Mr Modi, then chief minister of Gujarat, inaugurated a website (savarkar.org) that promotes a man "largely unknown to the masses because of the vicious propaganda against him and misunderstanding around him that has been created over several decades", and in 2012 he launched a Gujarati-language biopic. A previous BJP-led government put Savarkar's portrait in parliament. On his birthday this year, May 28th, the prime minister paid homage to him there. Mr Modi tweeted about Savarkar's "tireless efforts towards the regeneration of our motherland". Ranjit Savarkar's group plans various events to mark the 50th anniversary of Savarkar's death in 1966. (Aged 83, he submitted to what he called atmaarpan--refusing food, water or medicine in order to die. It took 20 days.)
Yet Savarkar remains immensely divisive. He was a fiercely outspoken critic of Gandhi, still India's top national hero: he called Gandhi weak, a "sissy" and far too willing to collaborate with Britain. Gandhian talk of man's common humanity he regarded as utopian to the point of naivety. In articles from the 1920s to the 1940s Savarkar lambasted Gandhi as a "crazy lunatic" who "happens to babble...[about] compassion, forgiveness", yet "notwithstanding his sublime and broad heart, the Mahatma has a very narrow and immature head." Gandhi promoted ahimsa, a Buddhist rejection of violence which Savarkar called "mealy-mouthed". He said Gandhi was a hypocrite for supporting violence by the British against Germany in the first world war. Nor did he cheer Gandhi's prominent backing for the Ottoman Caliphate Movement, designed to win Indian Muslims to oppose British colonial rule.
Over the years, Savarkar was eclipsed by his rival. During the 1920s and 1930s, the INC benefited from its ability to claim plausibly that it spoke for Muslims as well as Hindus, which made it a more credible interlocutor with the colonial authorities. Perhaps more important, it had an impressive organisation and, in Gandhi and later in Nehru, accomplished political leaders.
By the mid 1940s Savarkar and his supporters in the Mahasabha (which he led until his death) had a new gripe against Gandhi. They were enraged at the prospect of Pakistan seceding from India. Gandhi, in their eyes, did nothing to stop that "vivisection". Worse, he seemed to favour Pakistan when it sent forces to violently seize Kashmir, evidence to Savarkar that warlike Muslims were again crushing passive Hindus. When Nehru applied economic sanctions on Pakistan (refusing to pass on its share of central-bank funds from before independence), Gandhi launched a fast in protest and forced him to back down. To Savarkar's followers in the Mahasabha, that constituted national betrayal.
On January 30th 1948 Gandhi was assassinated in Delhi. The killer, Nathuram Godse, was a member of the Mahasabha, edited its newspaper and was an associate of Savarkar's. Godse's explanation of his actions echoed Savarkar: he said he murdered Gandhi for his "false notions of Hindu-Muslim unity" and in fury over the secession of Pakistan. Savarkar was arrested and tried as a plotter in the murder. He denied all and was acquitted. That did not convince everybody. As the leader of the Mahasabha, who had praised the efficacy of violence and railed against Muslims, it was reasonable to suspect he had at least inspired Gandhi's killer. A.G. Noorani, author of a book on Savarkar and Godse, goes further. He draws a parallel to the Kensington murder of Wylie in 1909, saying the elder man had twice pressed others to pull the trigger. "I would definitely call him complicit in the assassination of Gandhi," he concludes. He points, too, to an official commission of inquiry into Gandhi's death, in the late 1960s, which drew on testimony unavailable at the original trial. It found the evidence was "destructive of any theory other than the conspiracy to murder by Savarkar and his group". Following Gandhi's murder the RSS was also banned, for a year. Yet the final reason why Savarkar should remain unacceptable in modern India goes beyond suspicion over Gandhi's murder. It lies in his attitude to his fellow, non-Hindu, Indians. In his own writing he relates joyfully how as a 12-year-old boy he led a gang of schoolmates to stone his village mosque and smash its windows and tiles, in the aftermath of Hindu-Muslim riots. Relating how "we vandalised the mosque to our heart's content", he adds that when confronted by Muslim boys, he and his pals wielded knives and sticks and chased them away.
Throughout his writing he sets out Muslims as savage, immoral, sensual and eager to destroy the Hindu way of life. In 1937 he wrote of there being "two antagonistic nations living side by side in India", an idea that relies on using religion as the defining characteristic of any Indian, one utterly against the secular constitution of India. And while he occasionally wrote admiringly of the political and religious fervour of Islam, or rather of Muslim political leaders, he did so to encourage his fellow Hindus to match or exceed it.
In India today the fear of communal clashes--between Hindus and Muslims--should not be overblown. But it is never far away. Especially before elections, parties exploit religious tensions. Those who promote hindutva and echo Savarkar whip up stories of "love jihad", alleging that Muslim men convert large numbers of Hindu women by seducing them. Earlier this month a BJP parliamentarian praised Godse as a "patriot" equal to Gandhi. Members of the increasingly influential RSS feel emboldened. Such majoritarian politics, when a larger religious group sets out to absorb or flatten a minority, is utterly destructive. One need only look at the failure of Pakistan as a reminder of that. Sarvarkar could be a brilliant, eloquent and progressive leader. He could also be extremist, violent and divisive. If his influence grows, India's tolerance and moderation will be at risk.
"Notwithstanding his...broad heart, the Mahatma has a very narrow and immature head," wrote Savarkar
&#xa0;
Savarkar (back row, second left) was arrested and tried as a plotter in Gandhi's murder. He was acquitted
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