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As more and more parties use Artificial Intelligence as a key tool in their campaign arsenal to amplify their political messaging, the Congress too is planning to take the AI route. Sources said the party may recreate Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru using AI, who would answer specific questions in the current political context.
The leader said the campaign would have a tagline such as ‘Agar Gandhi aur Nehru zinda hote (Had Gandhi and Nehru been alive)’, with the leaders’ images answering in their voice some of the questions thrown at the Congress by the BJP, as well as give their opinion on the “style of functioning” of the Narendra Modi government.
The Congress is also planning to use AI to create IVR (interactive voice response) audio messages in Rahul Gandhi’s voice in multiple languages, which will be shared on WhatsApp and other social media platforms of the party.
The BJP already has multiple handles on X where speeches of Prime Minister Narendra Modi are shared, in his voice, in regional languages – among them Bengali, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Punjabi, Marathi, Odia and Malayalam.
Each such handle uploads the PM’s speeches particularly relevant to that state, dubbing them into the local language using AI.
Earlier, the Congress rolled out its Lok Sabha election campaign with the tagline ‘Haath Badlega Halaat (Congress will change the situation)’. The party has hired advertising agency DDB Mudra to create its publicity campaign, while IPG is looking after the media distribution.
The first phase of the campaign – which will really pick up pace from the first week of April – carries the punchline ‘Mere vikaas ka do hisaab (Account for the progress you promised)’ and is more of a “negative one” seeking “accountability” from the BJP government.
The second phase will focus on comparing the 10-year rule of the UPA and NDA; and the third phase will be tailored around the manifesto promises of the Congress, which the party describes as a “positive campaign”.
The Congress has come out with 25 promises so far – dubbing these as “guarantees” – appealing to the youth, women, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, and farmers.
As it had done during last year’s Karnataka and Telangana Assembly election campaigns, the Congress has printed what it calls “guarantee cards” and will be distributing these door to door starting April 3.
The party’s manifesto, called Nyay Patra, would be released on April 5, and will include its promises, such as enactment of a Right to Health law, an employment guarantee Act for urban areas, increasing the national minimum wage to Rs 400 per day, distribution of Rs 1 lakh annually to a woman in every poor family, provision of 50% reservation for women in new appointments in the Central government, and doubling the Centre’s contribution in the salaries of anganwadi, ASHA (Accredited Social Health Activist) and mid-day meal scheme workers.
Besides, there are assurances to fill up to 30 lakh vacant posts in the Central government, to provide right to one-year apprenticeship with a private or a public sector company to every diploma holder or college graduate below the age of 25, to give monetary compensation to those affected by exam paper leaks, to enact a legislation to secure gig workers, and to set up a Rs 5,000 crore ‘start-up fund’ with allotments spread across all districts of the country for five years for youth below the age of 40 years.
The party’s ground campaign would also begin in the first week of April. Congress parliamentary party chairperson Sonia Gandhi, party president Mallikarjun Kharge and senior leader Rahul Gandhi are scheduled to kickstart it with a public meeting in Jaipur on April 6.
Kharge and the Gandhi siblings – Rahul and Priyanka – are expected to address meetings across the country after that. While the party also has plans to organise joint rallies of INDIA bloc parties, it is to be seen whether the party manages to bring together top leaders of the alliance on one platform, given that some of the constituents are fighting against each other in some states – for instance, the AAP and the Congress in Punjab, the Left and the Congress in Kerala, and the Trinamool Congress and the Congress in West Bengal.
