Sting and sing, theme of new Congress ad blitz

NEW DELHI: Congress is set to launch its second phase of publicity campaign which would comprise highlighting the achievements of the UPA government and attacking rival BJP.

The first leg of advertisements revolved around projection of Rahul Gandhi as the agent of change. The advertisements in print and television showed the face of the Congress vice-president with the slogan "har haath shakti, har haath tarakki".

While there are mixed views about the first part of the campaign, Congress is banking on the second phase to sound the poll bugle. The achievements of UPA are likely to drive home the familiar points but it is the attack on rivals that may hold the juice for the Congress campaign that has remained lacklustre till now.
"The projection of UPA achievements and the attack on BJP would go simultaneously," a party leader said.

Congress has lately begun to up the ante against BJP, with Rahul Gandhi likening rival Narendra Modi to "Hitler" and accusing RSS of killing Mahatma Gandhi. The attacks have livened up the ruling party’s campaign which, till now, had failed to lift the workers’ morale.

The ad campaign has been designed to show Rahul as a youth leader with a vision. The hoardings and the ads in the print media showed him without the customary company of Congress chief Sonia Gandhi or Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. It was reminiscent of the hoardings of 2009 elections to announce Rahul as the GenNext, with the slogan "ateet ki neenv par, bhavishya ka nirman".

The solo ads this time carried pithy one-liners as Rahul’s policy vision like "rajniti nahin, kaajniti", "main nahin, hum", "todein nahin, jodein" with the overarching slogan of "har haath shakti, har haath tarakki".