Fundraising dinners, primaries and live town halls lending an American touch to 2014 election campaign
Aggressive social media campaigns have been launched by all the parties: Modi's 100-plus campaign team is led by dotcom stars of late '90s and early 2000s.
Last night, 250 high net worth individuals from Bangalore paid Rs 20,000 per plate to attend a fundraiser for the Aam Aadmi Party at Capital Hotel in Bangalore. On Thursday night, at a similar event inSadar, Nagpur, Arvind Kejriwal spoke to a 150-plus crowd that had paid Rs 10,000 apiece to listen to the AAP chief. The Rs 65-70 lakh raised at the two events was the first ever by an Indian political party through a channel popular mostly in western democracies, especially America.
This isn't the only American touch at this high-decibel Indian general election, and it isn't limited to new outfits like AAP. Parties across the spectrum are adopting many popular practices of American politics. The Congress party's decision to hold primaries in select constituencies — in the teeth of opposition from local party chiefs — and its main opponent BJP's decision to project Narendra Modi as its prime ministerial candidate, way ahead of the elections, are both very reminiscent of the American Presidential elections. The extensive use of social media and even the debates being organized by the civil society add more than an Amreeki touch to the heat and dust of our parliamentary process.
Prof Srikrishna Ayyangar, who is with the School of Policy and Governance at the Azim Premji University, believes most of these initiatives are necessary to modernize democratic processes. He saysm,"Establishing primaries as a formal process to promote democratic practices within a political party is clearly a step in the right direction. It allows incumbents to exit with dignity and maintains party loyalty by providing opportunities for party colleagues in-waiting. The consequence of not instituting party primaries much earlier is that we have so many tiny parties in our electoral landscape. These leaders found it easier to float an outfit than spend years trying to climb national party hierarchies."
Primary colours
Congress, which is seen as a dynastic party, needs primaries to change the widely-held perception that it's a closed, elite club. As political analyst and pro vice-chancellor of Jain University , Bangalore, Prof Sandeep Shastri says, "A major criticism of the Congress has been the lack of internal democracy. The 25-constituency experiment is a response to this." The Congress primaries have been ferociously opposed particularly by senior leaders such as Kapil Sibal, Krishna Tirath and Beni Prasad Verma. But the idea has gone through because it's Rahul Gandhi's pet idea. That very senior party leaders — Janardhan
This isn't the only American touch at this high-decibel Indian general election, and it isn't limited to new outfits like AAP. Parties across the spectrum are adopting many popular practices of American politics. The Congress party's decision to hold primaries in select constituencies — in the teeth of opposition from local party chiefs — and its main opponent BJP's decision to project Narendra Modi as its prime ministerial candidate, way ahead of the elections, are both very reminiscent of the American Presidential elections. The extensive use of social media and even the debates being organized by the civil society add more than an Amreeki touch to the heat and dust of our parliamentary process.
Prof Srikrishna Ayyangar, who is with the School of Policy and Governance at the Azim Premji University, believes most of these initiatives are necessary to modernize democratic processes. He saysm,"Establishing primaries as a formal process to promote democratic practices within a political party is clearly a step in the right direction. It allows incumbents to exit with dignity and maintains party loyalty by providing opportunities for party colleagues in-waiting. The consequence of not instituting party primaries much earlier is that we have so many tiny parties in our electoral landscape. These leaders found it easier to float an outfit than spend years trying to climb national party hierarchies."
Primary colours
Congress, which is seen as a dynastic party, needs primaries to change the widely-held perception that it's a closed, elite club. As political analyst and pro vice-chancellor of Jain University , Bangalore, Prof Sandeep Shastri says, "A major criticism of the Congress has been the lack of internal democracy. The 25-constituency experiment is a response to this." The Congress primaries have been ferociously opposed particularly by senior leaders such as Kapil Sibal, Krishna Tirath and Beni Prasad Verma. But the idea has gone through because it's Rahul Gandhi's pet idea. That very senior party leaders — Janardhan
"Rahul Gandhi's mostly failed attempt at holding primaries ironically shows its strength — none of the Congress leaders that declined primaries actually had the moral courage to be accountable to his own party colleagues, let alone his constituents. Those leaders could have been perceived differently if they had lost with dignity rather than validated the stereotype by clinging to their seats," argues Prof Ayyangar.
Fund feast
AAP is organizing fundraisers in keeping with its commitment to bring transparency into election funding. As their leaders keep saying they want "to raise money over the table, not under the table." It is also publishing the names of the donors, again very much a common American practice. BJP tried something similar for those attending Modi rallies by collecting a token amount of Rs 5/10 per head.
While direct sparring between rival candidates, like the live televized debates in America, won't happen anytime soon in India, the fourth estate is taking the lead in this. Besides TV channels, this newspaper too organized a debate in Kolkata in early March where the topic 'New politics is good for opposition not governance', was debated among senior politicos like Salman Khurshid, Yogendra Yadav, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Sitaram Yechury, social activist Aruna Roy and columnist Shobhaa De.
Desi flavour
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Aggressive social media campaigns have been launched by all the parties: Modi's 100-plus campaign team is led by Rajesh Jain and B G Mahesh, dotcom stars of late '90s and early 2000s. The reclusive, Bangalore-headquartered team has been working on getting Modi elected for a year now. Expectedly Congress candidate and former tech czar Nandan Nilekani has also unleashed a high-intensity social media campaign.
Prof Shastri doesn't think that these fresh currents blowing through the Indian electoral system can necessarily be seen as India adopting American-style practices. He says, "While in form it all looks like borrowing from America, in reality it has an authentic Indian flavour." He says that BJP's Modi projection is actually a declaration of "a PM candidate to offset competition within the party." To him AAP's fundraising dinners are because the aam aadmi cannot fund it, and Congress' internal choice of candidates is because it has no clear membership list.
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