"A veritable carpet-bombing of India’s voters with the opposition BJP’s message is everywhere to be seen, from advertisements in newspapers, on TV, Youtube, Radio, Mobile Phones, CDs and the Internet, to billboards in all metropolitan cities and small towns and on transport vehicles, including inside the Delhi Metro trains... This vast campaign has been on a scale never seen in history, estimated by some to be costing Rs 5000-6000 crores or more (from 800 to over 900 million dollars).
"I have no knowledge in the field whatsoever. However, to be honest, the 2014 elections captured my attention and I liked the official Facebook page of AAP to be updated. Today, I saw a photo posted by the page and opened the comments. I saw this comment at the top... It had about 100 likes at that time. I looked away for a few moments, and when I saw it again, the number had risen to around 400. This might be normal for high-volume pages like this, but it got my attention.
The slogan 'Har Har Modi' has caused some controversy, symbolising the extent to which the campaign looks like a personality cult. Modi claims this slogan is the creation of over-enthusiastic supporters, but the evidence suggests it was prepared by his own strategists.
"Modi is sending out hundreds of officers, ministers to other states ‘with a view to make aware Gujarati community and local residents of respective State about progress achieved by Gujarat in various fields... Under this program, it has been decided by the State Government to depute delegation consisting of Hon’ble Members of Parliament/Hon’ble Members of Legislative Assembly / District Panchayat Presidents / Mayors of Municipal Corporation under Chairmanship of Hon’ble Deputy Speaker / Hon’ble Minister for dissemination of information on project of “Statue of Unity” ...
"...Once Reliance invested in the group, editors approached stories about their benefactor gingerly. In one instance in 2012, a possible story containing a reference about Reliance and TV18 bidding for Indian cricket rights was discussed by the channel’s core editors for two days. “People were saying, ‘Yeah, let’s play it up,’” a person involved in the story’s production told me. But the reference worried them, and they asked the reporter to confirm once more that Reliance had placed a bid. This was confirmed, but the story that ran contained only the names of other bidders...
"An ever-growing online community of pro-Hindu, pro-BJP, pro-Narendra Modi, right-wing tweeters has taken over political discourse on the Internet... A mark of their overwhelming online supremacy can be found in the India Today Group's e-lection poll, a mock online General Election in which users were asked to vote in Lok Sabha constituencies across India. The ballot worked through one-time passwords sent to mobile phones, ensuring only one vote for every cell number to prevent rigging.
"Adolf Hitler was a brilliant propagandist. Narendra Modi too believes in the power of image. Which is probably why the chief minister hired a US lobbying firm which has serviced clients like former Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha and President-for-life of Kazakhstan Nursultan Abishuly Nazarbayev. This Washington-based firm, Apco Worldwide, was hired by Modi sometime in August this year, in the run-up to an important Assembly election, to improve his image before the world community.
