Better outreach from early announcement of Nyay: Cong

Congress campaign for the Lok Sabha elections was focussed on issues such as unemployment, economic slowdown but lacked volunteer support, said a senior leader from party adding that an early announcement of Nyay would have helped in better outreach efforts.

The leader involved with the campaign highlighted the challenges in rolling out the publicity material for Congress' flagship initiative Nyay announced by Rahul in late March, barely a fortnight ahead of the first phase of the Lok Sabha polls.

“A good propaganda machine needs a vast team of volunteers. We lacked the volunteer input,” the leader said adding that an early announcement of Nyay would have helped in better outreach efforts.

Congress President Rahul Gandhi's challenge to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a debate on Rafale aircraft deal, the campaign against fake news and the “reassuring tone” of 'Congress hai na', struck a chord with the voters, said a Congress functionary handling the digital outreach for the party during the Lok Sabha elections.

“Rahul Gandhi emerged as a bigger leader than in 2014,” Naresh Arora, Director, Designboxed, a political campaign management firm handling the Congress campaign, told DH.

Arora admitted that the visibility of the BJP campaign was more than that of the Congress. However, he claimed that the BJP campaign lacked focus and as the party tinkered with the themes quite often.

On the other hand, Congress campaign also sought to highlight the non-political side of senior leaders such as Digvijaya Singh and Manish Tewari through small videos titles 'The Candid Story'.

“The questions for the leaders came from the people through social media. It was a way to bring out the personal aspect of a leader's life,” Arora said.

In contrast, the BJP dominated advertisement space across media throughout the country, while Congress focused on high-impact sites.