The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which has always relied on the power of word of mouth and door-to-door campaign, has, for the first time, unleashed an unprecedented IT (information technology) blitzkrieg for the forthcoming general elections.
In Delhi alone, the Sangh has managed to lay its hands on adatabase of 11.5 million voters and plans to reach out to at least 2.5 million (about 20 per cent of the Delhi’s electorate) through mobile phones and other internet platforms. It has lined up a legion of 10,000 volunteers, who will campaign online as well as on the ground to make “Narendra Modi – the next Prime Minister of India”.
It has been running a campaign “Vote for India 272” and opened accounts on Facebook and Twitter. Through missed-call registration, it enlisted 80,000 people who are willing to spare at least one hour a day for the campaign.
According to a senior RSS official, of these 16,000 had already been engaged with specific tasks, which they could carry out from their homes or workplace. In the next few days, the rest would also be roped in.
The RSS operates the entire campaign – both online and offline – through a team of 10 highly qualified professionals. The strategy is to clog the cyberspace with ‘Modi’ messages. The team is led by Param Mohariya, a software professional who is back in India to start his own business after a decade-long stint in the US in various IT companies. To facilitate and monitor the campaign round-the-clock, it has set up a 30-seat call centre.
Another highlight of the campaign is that the team is using point-to-point protocol to help volunteers directly talk to prospective voters. “One just have to dial a centralised number, which would connect him to a voter’s number in our database. This project will be operational this week,” said Mohariya.
However, the RSS is fighting shy of acknowledging that it is running the campaign. Observers feel RSS’ name would be counter-productive as it might scare away “non-political supporters of Modi”.
“The RSS is not running the team: There may be a few swayamsevaks in the team. That’s it,” said Rajiv Tuli, state prasar prachar pramukh (in-charge of the publicity wing of RSS).
According to Mohariya, the team has fanned out groups of volunteers to distribute pamphletsamong voters in public places and outside Metro stations. Besides, three teams have been staging street plays to drive home the importance of a stable government at the Centre. “Our campaign is straightforward and positive. Our focus is to highlight the good work done by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) governments in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Goa,” said Mohariya. He says most volunteers have no connection with the BJP or the Sangh.
However, RSS is not ready to forsake its emphasis on the time-tested door-to-door campaign methods. In the first phase, it had managed to enrol about 100,000 new voters in Delhi alone. In the cleverly planned drive, which began on February 1 and ended on February 20, RSS volunteers did not mention about the BJP or Modi. “It was purely a mundane campaign, bereft of political overtones, encouraging new voters to enrol their names in the voters’ list. We didn’t tell them to vote for a particular party: we told them to vote for India. In the second phase, we would identify ourselves with Modi and our conversation would acquire a political tone,” said an RSS activist, who is not authorised to speak to the media.
The organisation would give the campaign a nationalistic and patriotic pitch in the next phase in cities such as Delhi. However, in Uttar Pradesh (UP) and other north Indian states, where people are more religious, the message is: Voting for Modi is a religious duty. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) has already fanned out Sadhus to drive home this message.
There are many takers for this. For instance, Harish Sharma (name changed on request), a senior manager with a German firm in India, has decided not to take up any new professional assignment for the next two months and has been working for Modi’s cause. Hailing from Muzaffarnagar, the epicentre of communal tension in UP, he has posted about 50,000 messages in support of Modi on Facebook and other internet platforms in the past eight months. “This is a patriotic duty. The Congress has ruined the country,” he said.
The RSS has selected a pointsman each for 70 Assembly seats and a five-member team for each booth in Delhi. The pointsmen will coordinate with other Sangh Parivar organisations and the BJP.
A booth-level team would visit each household in its area and interact with each member at least three times. “The BJP campaign would take place parallely and independently. Only in the last leg of the campaign, just before elections, would we go with BJP workers,” said one of the volunteers.
The organisation has prepared publicity materials and pamphlets targeting women and youngsters. Women supporters will also be roped in to talk to women voters. “In the last Assembly elections, even in our core supporters’ families, senior people voted for the BJP, while youngsters voted for the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). There were also instances when youngsters working abroad calling up their mothers asking them to vote for AAP. This time we would ensure that it would not happen,” said another activist.
To counter the AAP effect, the RSS has deployed allied organisation Sewa Bharati, which has been undertaking several social service activities in slums. “We are hugely happy with the response we got in the first round. There is a groundswell of support for Modi,” said R Raman, an RSS activist.
Although the campaign is Delhi-centric, the template would be replicated elsewhere. “This is the most spirited campaign undertaken by the RSS after the Ramjanmabhoomi movement and the election after Emergency,” noted a senior RSS leader.
RSS Sahsarkaryavah (joint general secretary) Dattatreya Hosabale is directly monitoring the campaign in his home state of Karnataka. According to NDTV pre-poll survey, the BJP is expected to perform well in the state.