With the launch of its Uttar Pradesh campaign just a week away, senior BJP leaders are hard at work on slogans and campaign advertisements, tweaking ideas put forward by “creative teams” in Delhi and Lucknow. The predominant themes are likely to be corruption, lawlessness, price rise, minority appeasement, apart from a soft brand of Hindutva. So when Atal Behari Vajpayee takes the stage with Kalyan Singh and the Apna Dal’s Sone Lal Patel in Kanpur on March 25, marking the start of the BJP’s campaign in the state, one of the slogans will be ‘Bhay hatao, Bhajpa Lao (Remove fear, vote BJP)’, an attack on the Mulayam Singh Yadav government’s dismal record on the law and order front. According to Venkaiah Naidu, who is looking after ‘election management’ of the state, under minority appeasement, the BJP will focus on SIMI, the sentence against Mohammad Afzal Guru, POTA, the Sachar Committee report and reservation for Muslims in Aligarh Muslim University. Adds BJP vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi: “We are not against policies benefiting Muslims. But by supporting the SIMI and Afzal Guru, who are terrorists, the ordinary Muslim is being equated with such people.” A senior party leader said the BJP’s ‘election management’ functionaries have spent hours over the past few days discussing ideas put before them by the party’s Uttar Pradesh unit and Central leaders. At least half a dozen advertising companies from Delhi and Mumbai have been roped in to suggest ideas in line with the broad campaign theme, aimed not merely at the Samajwadi Party but also at the BSP and Congress. All these ideas, backed by posters and illustrated with cartoon sketches and pictures, are now waiting for approval of the BJP’s election in-charge. Once it gets his nod, these slogans and advertisements could be used in the party’s campaign over television, media, the Internet, plus through SMS and MMS. Coming up, but yet to be finalised, is a slogan twisting the SP’s campaign for ‘Uttam Pradesh’. A top party leader said, tongue-in-cheek, that just like the BJP’s ‘India Shining’ campaign bombed at the hustings, so will Mulayam’s ‘Uttam Pradesh’. The BJP plans to attack it on the question of poor law and order, criminalisation of politics, increasing problems for farmers and a general decline in the condition of the people. The campaign will also parody Amitabh Bachchan who appears in the ‘Uttam Pradesh’ campaigns. But the campaign slogans will not be all negative. Aiming to position itself as a better alternative to the SP and other parties, the party is working on a slogan that takes off from its theme ‘Badlo behtari ke liye (Change for the better)’ and promises ‘Surakshit insaan, sampann kisan, khush-haal naujawan, mahilaon ka samman, Vande Mataram, kamal nishaan (A safe common man, a well-off farmer, a happy youth, respect for women)’.
