Sushma hires PR firm for new image as city’s guardian

NEW DELHI, November 20: Chief Minister Sushma Swaraj is going all out to create a new image, and she is not relying on the official Bharatiy...

NEW DELHI, November 20: Chief Minister Sushma Swaraj is going all out to create a new image, and she is not relying on the official Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) propaganda machine for this. She has sought the services of a professional public relations firm for the new, guardian-of-Delhi image that she is seeking.

It is perhaps for the first time that a public relations firm is being employed for Delhi Assembly elections. Sources in the BJP say the party has a whopping Rs 1.5 crore budget for its campaign. Professor Vijay Kumar Malhotra, BJP’s campaign manager and former Member of Parliament (MP), said that though he was in charge of the overall campaign’s publicity, Sushma is “organising her own publicity”. “I do not know what she is doing as she is doing it on her own,” he told Express Newsline.

Sushma Swaraj, according to party workers, has sought the services of McCann Ericsson’s Indian subsidiary PSL Universal Limited. But Press Syndicate Limited (PSL) is tight-lipped about the campaign planned for Sushma Swaraj. “Actually we will be projecting the entire party,” says an executive with the PSL.

The directive to the firm from the Chief Minister’s office is clear — to project Sushma Swaraj as the guardian of Delhi — the only person who can bring an end Delhi’s problems. “Take, for example, her statement immediately after she took over as the Chief Minister of Delhi, and the late night rounds of the Capital she made waking up the area DCP and suspending a Station House Officer. That is our focus,” adds another advertising executive.

“But we are going beyond the police and will encompass the entire state administration. Within a few days she shook the administration. We will send the message across that when she can do this in a few days, given five years she will make Delhi a dream city,” says a PSL executive.

Though Tapas Gupta, president and chief executive officer of PSL prefers not to comment on Swaraj and says there is no “official contract” with the BJP, Chief Minister Sushma Swaraj’s press incharge Pushpendra revealed that PSL was looking after the publicity and the advertisements highlighting her achievements are being released through them.

Both Malhotra and Pushpendra could not confirm the amount of money set aside for Sushma Swaraj’s campaign. Malhotra, however, said that their budget was rather limited. “We have a campaign budget of Rs 10-15 lakh and that is mainly for stickers, buttons and giving advertisements for public meetings where senior leaders like Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani etc come. The general advertisements are being released through Rash-triya,” he added.

Story continues below this ad

“Actually she does not need advertisements or money to woo voters, she will win anyway,” says a party worker at her Hauz Khas office. Probably taking a leaf out of Sushma Swaraj’s campaign notebook, two lesser known Congress leaders, Vijay Deep from Mehrauli and Ram Ratan Gupta from Kasturba Nagar, are not relying just on their personal relations with the public and have sought the services of a public relations firm Fourth Protocol.