[Reader-list] BJP goes Radio Ga Ga

[faiz ullah]

  *Radio ga ga for Uttar Pradesh polls* <javascript:clippopup(1853532);>
*
TIMES NEWS NETWORK**[ WEDNESDAY, APRIL 04, 2007 04:27:52 AM*] After the
India Shining Campaign Backfired, BJP seems to have got their basics right
this time
for the Delhi Municipal Corporation elections. Moving away from their 'broad
strokes and
sweeping statements' style BJP this time around had a very specific message
and went for the kill.

It'll be of great interest to see them repeating the same feat (if at all
they do)... in the ongoing
UP Polls and elsewhere later, especially when towns like Aligarh, Bareilly,
hisar, bikaner, karnal, etc
(the list of coming up stations  is very long) have got their own FM
stations...

Regards,

Faiz

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/PoliticsNation/Radio_ga_ga_for_Uttar_Pradesh_polls/articleshow/1853532.cms


     NEW DELHI: In the tussle to attract voters' attention in poll-bound
Uttar Pradesh and Delhi, it is the good old radio which has staged a
comeback as the main medium of publicity for political players.

Buoyed by the positive feedback to its Dilli gul ya Congress gul campaign,
conducted through the radio and the print medium, to lure the Delhi
municipal corporation voters, the BJP on Tuesday unveiled a similar
publicity blitz for Uttar Pradesh. The focus of this project too is the
radio, and to some extent, the newspapers. The visual medium figures very
low in the party's scheme of things.

The BJP's strategy was honed out on the basis of the report of an extensive
survey conducted at its behest on the effectiveness of the means of
communication used by the political parties in battleground UP.

``It was discovered that while 32% of the people surveyed did not read
newspapers, almost every family in the stated owned a radio. And 40% of the
people did not have access to TVs,'' pointed out former BJP president M
Venkaiah Naidu, who's in charge of the state for the coming elections.

The party has, accordingly, devised its publicity plans with the focus on
radio. It has prepared a series of short 24 second/30 second advertisements
to captivate the voters across the state. The main themes of this publicity
drive are the rampant corruption in the state, collapse of law and order
machinery and the reign of terror, criminalisation and the galloping prices.


While the Samajwadi Party, BSP and the Congress have been treated at par
(Panja, Cycle aur haathi, yeh teenon hain barabar ke saathi), the ads depict
the BJP and its chief ministerial candidate Kalyan Singh as the best option
for the electorate.

The voice-over in these ads, christened Saavdhan, Nithari and Janata Past,
have been provided by film actor Mukesh Khanna. ``Each spot will be relayed
at least 10 times every day through all the AIR and FM stations dotting the
state till the end of the campaigning period,'' observed Mr Naidu.

While radio occupies the pride of place in its publicity roadmap, the BJP
has chosen the print media and the TV channels too to get its message
across. A spoof on the now-famous Kyonki UP mein jurm hai kam catchline
mouthed on behalf the ruling Samajwadi Party by superstar Amitabh Bachchan
will go on air shortly through the TV channels.

While the party refuses to part with details of the kind of expenditure
it'll have to incur in the process, it is expected that it'll have to fork
out an estimated Rs 30 lakh on its radio blitz (including the FM channels
and the state-owned Vividh Bharati).

The party is also relying on short plays, mounted on mobile raths, to gets
its views across to the people. The plays, lampooning the Mulayam Singh
Yadav government and the Samajwadi Party, as well as the BSP and the
Congress in the local languages, will be staged at as many as 1400 venues
across the state.

Five such roaming theatres will criss-cross the state in the next 29 days of
campaigning. The actors, who have been drawn from Rajasthan and Gujarat,
besides UP, will be travelling aboard these raths, which have been equipped
with the latest audio-visual systems.
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