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ISSN- 2394-5125 VOL 7, ISSUE 09, 2020 DIGITAL POLITICS IN DELHI’S ASSEMBLY ELECTION, 2020
Dr. Md. Mofidur Rahman
Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Science & Technology, Meghalaya Email id: [email protected]
Received:26 January 2020 Revised and Accepted: 11 April 2020
ABSTRACT: In the early phases of India‟s general election, political parties used newspapers, public meetings, and door-to-door canvassing to convey their political agenda, policies, and manifesto. They used street play, magic shows, and miking to influence the voters. However, with the emergence of digital marketing and advertisement agencies in the post-economic reform era in 1990s, there has been a revolutionary shift in the strategies of election campaigns by the political parties. The political parties who were totally new to the concept of digital marketing till very recently, have now become technology savvy. They are using the new age technology and various social media platform such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and various Google platforms to decipher their political ideas and policies in order to influence the voters. Since the data consumption is very high in India especially among the youths the political parties are using digital marketing to reach out to the target audiences. It‟s noteworthy that although digital marketing has a deep influence on the electoral politics of India, however, the menace of fake news has become a great challenge for India‟s democracy. In the present article, Delhi has been taken as a case study where the author tries to explore the shift in the election campaigns in India. Secondly, this paper has tried to give an overview of the effects of digital marketing on election campaigns in the recently concluded Delhi assembly election, 2020. The present study has adhered to both qualitative and quantitative methods and purely based on secondary sources such as books, newspaper articles, internet sources, reports, etc.
KEYWORDS: digital marketing, election campaign, and social media.
I. INTRODUCTION:
The election is a regular phenomenon in any democratic country. Without an election there can be no democracy. The election is the process by which the voters or electors elect their representatives by casting their votes freely in favour of the candidates of their choice. In a liberal democratic country, elections are generally held in a regular interval. Although election is necessary and a channel of democracy, however, democracy cannot be reduced to the idea of elections only. In India, the first phase of democracy begins with the first general election held in the year 1951-52. Niraja Gopal Jayal argues that in India, immediately after independence, political participation was largely restricted to elections, but it was no long before other forms of political mobilization began to emerge.1 However, over the years the elections have become more competitive, colourful, and costly. Party politics has become so competitive that winning has become everything. And in order to win the election, the political parties have gradually shifted their campaign strategies and techniques. There is a gradual shift in the campaign. And this shift has basically observed in the post-economic reforms era. With the economic reforms in the 1990s by the P.V. Narasimha Rao government Indian economy was liberalised, privatised, and globalised. The economic liberalisation was influenced by the neo-liberal policies. The basic argument of the neo-liberal policies is the non-interference of the government in the economy and the markets. As a result of this, there was a huge foreign direct investment (FDI) in various sectors such as telecom industries, service industries, etc. The primary objectives of this paper are to explore the shift in the campaign tone and style in the electoral politics of India, Secondly, to understand whether the emergence of digital politics has reduced the effect of the traditional campaign?, thirdly, to understand the effect of digital politics in the Delhi Assembly Election, 2020 and its influence upon the voters. This study takes Delhi as a case study.
II. METHODOLOGY:
The methodology is the art and science of any study. It helps to define the research problem and how to conduct the research. The present study has combined both qualitative and quantitative methods where secondary sources of data were used. Since we have a lack of primary sources emphasis has been given on secondary
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ISSN- 2394-5125 VOL 7, ISSUE 09, 2020 sources of data. The secondary sources comprise books, articles from various journals, newspaper, websites, reports from various agencies and authorities, etc. for the analysis of the data the researcher has basically focus on three political parties namely the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and Congress. The reason for selecting these three parties is that these are the three prominent players in the Delhi assembly election. This study takes Delhi as a case study.
Changing trends in the election campaign in India: A brief overview:
The election campaign in India is an evolving process. It has evolved gradually over the years. During the initial phases of Indian democracy, the political parties took strategies like rallies, canvassing, public meeting, mohalla meeting, street plays, magic shows, distribution of pamphlets to households, and various other outdoor activities to mobilise the people and to influence they about their party issues. Besides, in order to influence the voters, the political parties took endorsement from various stars, celebrates, religious leaders, and other influential persons. Farhat Basir Khan in his book, “The Game of Votes: visual Media politics and Elections in the Digital Era” says, “in the early general elections, political parties used newspapers, public meetings, and door-to-door canvassing to convey their messages, policies, manifesto and information about the party”2. He argues that the „traditional ways of poll campaigns are no longer effective or enough to gain the attention of the voters… with rapid advancement and industrialisation, the traditional methodologies of electoral campaigning also changed dramatically and gave rise to an even higher proliferation of modern media technologies….political branding, image management, crisis communication, data analytics, micro blogging, and most importantly, short crisp videos hold the key for today‟s elections”.3 Now the question arises is election campaign influence the election outcome? Or does election outcome is independent of the issues that have been included in the election agenda? Manfred J. Holler and Peter Skot argue that election campaigns can and often do influence voting behaviour and electoral outcomes4. To our understanding also election campaign greatly influences the election outcome. Through effective election campaign, the political parties reach out to the targeted audiences i.e. the voters and make the voter aware of their party issues, policies and agenda, and that they set in the party manifesto. Hence, without effective and strategic election campaigns a party will not be able to convince and influence the voters. However, as mentioned at the very outset that the tone and style of election campaigns have changed after the economic reforms in the 1990s. The use of new-age technology, personalised message, pre-recorded voice message, emails, and promotion of electronic media and social media has been playing a dominant role during the elections. Their influence in the elections is much greater and stronger as they can reach the electorates within a nanosecond. It‟s pertinent to mention here that in the Lok Sabha election 2019 digital media played a very important role. All the political parties used digital media platform for their political marketing and promotion. For instance, since February 2019 BJP spent 1.2 crores only on various platforms of Goole for 554 ads. They were running a combination of video, print, and digital ads highlighting its ongoing campaign such as „Main Bhi Chowkidar’. The BJP was followed by the YSR Congress party that spent around 1.04 crores 107 ads. The Congress was at 6th position with ads spending Rs 54,100/- across 14 ads.5 While the BJP ads highlight „Main Bhi Chowkidar’ jibe the Congress ads highlighted the promises made by its Prime Ministerial candidate Rahul Gandhi. It‟s noteworthy that Google enforced its election ads policy for India on 20 February 2019. As per the policy pre-approval from the Election commission of India (ECI) is needed for the advertisers6.
Digital marketing in Delhi’s assembly election, 2020:
There is a paradigm shift in the election campaign. Earlier mode of distribution of pamphlets to households got changed with the coming of digital marketing. „Political parties resorting to make use of Digital Marketing over the Traditional Marketing has caused a paradigm shift in the election campaigns‟7. The Delhi Assembly election which was held on 8th Feb 2020 saw a huge digital marketing and election campaign in various digital platforms. However, it‟s worthwhile to mention that this is not merely political promotion. This is a digital mode of election campaign where the political parties use to influence the voters through innovative ways. In the Delhi election various types of sarcastic and musical videos, personalised content, graphics, and short videos highlighting party issues and achievements, articles, interactive contents were used across political parties to reach out the voters.
The Delhi Assembly election 2020 has witnessed a three-cornered competition between the ruling AAP, BJP, and Congress. It‟s noteworthy that the Congress who ruled Delhi for fifteen years (1998-2013) occupied the third position. Congress showed the lowest ever performance with less than 5 per cent of the total votes. Besides, 63 Congress candidates of the 70 member Delhi assembly lose their deposits in the assembly election held in February8. The key features of the Delhi Assembly election are first, the election campaign was largely between two competing ideologies. According to an editorial published in the EPW titled “The Tone and Tenor
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ISSN- 2394-5125 VOL 7, ISSUE 09, 2020 of Election Campaign in Delhi” the competition in the Delhi Assembly election is between two models of politics. “One is advocating the politics of neighbourhood and promising the supply of everyday needs at a reasonable price. The other is pitching the issue of religious nationalism. This struggle between development on the one hand and religious nationalism on the other is becoming intense as the polling date of the Delhi election approaches”9. The election campaign of AAP was mainly revolved around its development agenda and was mainly focused on its previous achievements in health and education sectors over the last five years. The AAP has done remarkable works in the health sector. The reforms in the health care system, its mohalla clinic experiment and the reforms in the educations system got admires from both India and abroad. The mohalla clinic experiment has become and a new model of health care reform and even copied by many of the states (EPW). On the contrary, BJP‟s focus was on Hindu nationalism so as to keep their traditional vote base intact. Their focus on Article 370, the issue of Shaheen Bagh, the narrative on tukde-tukde gang, and Modi-care becomes futile. While the election campaign of AAP is a very positive campaign based on their promises like „Bijli, Pani, Swasth, Shiksha‟ (electricity, water, health, and education), free buses for women, and safety and security for women and children, the election campaign of BJP based on Hindu nationalism so as to keep their traditional vote base intact. It‟s noteworthy that Arvind Kejriwal openly asked the Delhi voters to vote for his party based on their works. On the contrary, though the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) was under the BJP the party couldn‟t attract the voters much as the MCD didn‟t have any remarkable achievement to show. The second important feature of the elections is that the assembly poll sees big spending in digital promotion. Another crucial feature of the election was the use of social media as a primary means of public outreach. The reason of high digital promotion and the use of social media for primary means of public outreach are that Delhi is a metropolitan city, has a very large number of youth voters with a Smartphone, majority of the voters are educated and connected with various digital media platforms, and finally data consumption in Delhi is very high. According to the Election Commission of India (ECI) Delhi has 1.46 crores registered voters. Out of the total voters‟ 66.35 lakhs are women voters10, 3 per cent of them are young voters of which 3.5 lakhs are first- time voters. Anup Sharma, an independent political communications consultant, argues that Delhi has more than 80 per cent of the total population digitally connected with a Smartphone in almost every household11. Since Delhi have large voters connected with social media all the major political parties have used various social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Instagram, Tik Tok, Google, YouTube, ShareChat, etc for disseminating information to the voters. These trends of social media presence by the political leaders started in 2014 Lok Sabha election basically after the success of Prime Minister Narendra Modi with the use of Twitter and Facebook.12 One of the important features of digital politics is the use of memes or images, short videos, etc with catchy subtitles. All three political parties used different memes, small videos, video clips from famous Bollywood films, T.V, Shows, sports to connect with the millennial voters. Some of the memes went viral. Mention may be made of Rinkiya Ke Papa (epic Bhojpuri song), Kejri-Well (used by Congress)13, and Delhi Ka Nayak14, etc. Moreover, the theme song of the AAP „Lage Raho Kejriwal’ composed by famous music director Vishal Dadlani went viral. All these memes and video clips were used by the political parties to counter each other and to keep engage the voters in digital platforms.
To our analysis the memes and video clips used by AAP had threefold purposes, firstly to disseminate political contents to the voters instantly, secondly, to highlight the party achievements, and thirdly, to counter the opposition and to engage the voters in digital platforms. However, the unique feature of these memes and video clips were that these were both creative and live, the creative memes and video clips were taken from famous old Bollywood films and T.V show episodes, and these were age-specific with a great sense of humour. Since the young voters (below 25 years) are basically engaged in TikTok and Instagram AAP used these two platforms specifically for young voters. On the contrary, Facebook was used to keep the voters above 25 years engaged15. Regarding the social media campaign strategy of AAP Ankit Lal16 says, “We operated on two fronts and it was a conscious choice. On one front, we highlighted the work done by the AAP government, and on the other; we attacked Manoj Tiwari [Delhi BJP president] as he was the easiest target”.17 It‟s important to mention here that for the first time AAP sued YouTube and Google advertisement in the Delhi assembly election.
The BJP also had a very strong presence in social media. We have already mentioned earlier that they have used all the social media platforms both for political campaigns and promotions. It‟s worthwhile to mention here that the party has created as many as 5800 WhatsApp groups during the Delhi Assembly election for instant dissemination of videos, political contents, and messages. To attract the Poorvanchali voters18 they have created Bhojpuri videos. Neelkant Bakshi19 of BJP says, “We made massive use of Twitter and Instagram and even launched specific apps like „Kamal Connect‟ with a purpose to disseminate contents of Manoj Tiwari‟s campaign, including songs”.20
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The digital expenditure: Who spent what, when and how?
So far as Delhi assembly polls are concerned, according to “Facebook‟s ad library between October 8, 2019, and January 5, 2020, political parties spent Rs 7,573,267 with BJP being the second-highest spender after Paltu Aadmi Party, a mock page on Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal that spent Rs 543,549 in the last 90 days. BJP‟s official ad spends for this period stood at Rs 429,412. Aam Aadmi Party‟s official page invested Rs 171,696 in the period on Facebook ads”21. Through these political ads AAP, BJP, and Congress have aggressively made their presence felt in social media and used it not only to highlight their activities but also developed political narratives to engage the voters. The social media advertisement of Congress was not as attractive as AAP and BJP. Since both parties have well- established digital cells a large part of the election was fought over the digital space. It‟s noteworthy that the political advertisement on social media by the parties was not only through their official page but also they spend a huge amount of money through party member‟s official page, affiliate pages, and campaign pages22. For example during the time of the Delhi election a page name „My Delhi, My Pride’ spent Rs. 301,835. This page has a pro-AAP approach but neither it is not an official page of the party nor comes with any claims of being run by the party.23
According to India Today Data Intelligence Unit (DIU) the ruling AAP in Delhi has spent the highest money on Facebook advertisement. The party has published 521 advertisements on Facebook and spent over Rs. 42 lakhs between January 2 and February1, 2020. Besides, the fan page of Arvind Kejriwal „Lage Raho Kejriwal‟ has published 391 advertisements and spent over Rs. 13 lakhs (see table 1). The advertisements mostly promote the achievements of the party in different fronts such as health, education, public transportation, etc. So far as an advertisement on Facebook is concerned the Congress stands second after the AAP. The party has published 552 advertisements in Facebook and spent over Rs. 19 lakhs (see table 1). The Delhi unit of BJP is in the third position. The BJP national page has spent over Rs. 13 lakhs on 5 advertisements in Facebook to promote the most controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), 2019 and the National Register of Citizenship (NRC). However, the Delhi unit of the BJP page comes at number 5. The party has spent Rs. 7.6 lakh on 22 advertisements in Facebook (see table 1).24
Table1. Page wise advertisement and expenditure in Facebook by political parties/candidate between January 2, to February 1, 2020.
Sl. No. Page Name Supporter Number of Ads in Library Amount Spent (INR) 1 Aam Admi Party AAP 521 42,72,414 2 Indian National Congress-Delhi INC 552 19,49,063 3 Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) BJP 5 13,85,607 4 Lage Raho Kejriwal (Hindi) AAP 391 13,63,745 5 BJP-Delhi BJP 22 7,67,060 6 Monoj Tiwari for Delhi CM BJP 87 4,69,748 7 R.K Sinha BJP 185 4,15,221 8 Main Hoon Delli BJP 190 3,94,359 9 Keshav Prasad Mayura BJP 7 2,73,621 10 Advocate Kailash Gahlot AAP 24 2,66,383 11 Raghav Chadha AAP 108 2,59,382 Source: India Today Data Intelligence Unit (DIU) between January 2, 2020 to February 1, 2020.
Challenges to digital politics:
Political campaign on a digital platform has both pros and cons. With the use of new-age technology during elections new kinds of threats are coming. As a result, the election conducting machinery has been facing severe challenges. The issues of fake news, cyber crime, and privacy issue of the candidates and voters‟ has become a great concern for the election commission. Due to the high exposure of online platforms by the voters and candidates has become vulnerable in the hands of hackers. However, there are many instances of hate speeches, racist and communal comments, morphed videos promoted by the candidates on various social media platforms. As a result, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has issued social media guidelines25 from time to time to keep the social media activities of the candidate under strict scrutiny. For instance, in March 12, 2019, Facebook was asked by the ECI to deleted two posts shared by BJP legislator contained pictures of the Indian Air Force pilot Abhinandan Varthaman.26
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ISSN- 2394-5125 VOL 7, ISSUE 09, 2020 Moreover, social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter have come under public scrutiny because of their role in elections. For example, “in 2018, a globally reported hearing of Mark Zuckerberg by the United States Congress in light of a public scandal involving the consulting group, Cambridge Analytica, played a big role in putting data harvesting for political purposes into view. Zuckerberg apologized then for not doing more to prevent the platform from being used for harm, including, “fake news, foreign interference in elections and hate speech”.27
III. CONCLUSION:
The study has clearly shown that the tone and tenor of the election campaign have changed over the years. However, this change is not a sudden change. This has happened gradually. This change has been divided into three periods, firstly pre-liberalisation period (1952-1989); secondly, post-liberalisation (1990-2014), and thirdly, the Modi era (2014 onwards). The campaign strategy in India during the pre-liberalisation period was different from the post liberalisation period. The political parties which basically give emphasis on the traditional style of the campaign in the pre-liberalisation period have shifted to digital media along with the traditional style of campaign. However, with the presence of Modi in the national politics of India election campaign has reached a new level. There has been a revolutionary change in the electoral politics of India. There is a high presence of digital campaigns in the elections of India. To manage the election campaign political parties started taking help of highly professional and technical experts and service providers. Although there has been the high presence of digital media in the election campaign it would be wrong to argue that the effect of the traditional mode of the campaign has been reduced. The effect of traditional media has not been reduced due to the emergence of digital campaigns. Rather digital campaign has given a new tone to the election campaign. Observation from the Delhi elections shows that all three major political parties hold several traditional rallies and meetings despite having a high style of a digital campaign. For instance, the BJP hold over 5300 rallies, public meetings, nukkad sabhas, roadshows, and other campaign-related programme during the Delhi election.28 The study has also shown that digital politics has played a crucial role in the Delhi assembly election. All three major political parties used various digital platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, etc. However, to translate this digital campaign into votes is a matter of great challenge. Although, it‟s intangible whether the digital campaign can translate into votes but still it has a tremendous impact upon the young voters because of their high presence in social media than conventional election procession and campaign. It is noteworthy that in Delhi 3 per cent of the total voters are young voters with 3.5 lakhs first-time voters. The issues and perception of young voters are much different from the middle-class voters. The youth basically give focus on issues like unemployment, corruption, inflation, social and financial security.29
It would be worthwhile to mention that digital politics is not a substitute for conventional methods of the election campaign as the majority of the Indian voters‟ live in rural India were connectivity and access to the digital domain is very less. Rather it‟s an addition to the conventional election campaign which makes the election more technology oriented.
IV. REFERENCES:
1 Jayal, N. G. (2007). Introduction: Situating Indian Democracy. In N. G. Jayal, Democracy in India (pp. 1-50). New Delhi: Oxford University Press. 2 deccanherald.com/national/national-politics/book-traces-evolution-of-campaigning-in-india-elections-763186.html 3 ibid 4 Manfred J. Holler and Peter Skot (2004). Election campaigns, agenda setting and electoral outcomes. Economics Department Working Paper Series. 79. University of Massachusetts. P.2 5 https://www.livemint.com/industry/media/bjp-leads-political-ad-spends-on-google-congress-on-sixth-spot- 1554359631496.html 6 Ibid 7 https://digitalant.in/2019/07/05/how-digital-marketing-played-a-major-role-in-indian-elections-2019/ 8 https://www.livemint.com/news/india/delhi-election-results-63-congress-candidates-lose-deposits-11581423777784.html 9 The tone and tenor of election campaign in Delhi Election, EPW 10 https://www.indiatoday.in/elections/delhi-assembly-polls-2020/story/over-1-46-crore-people-eligible-to-cast-votes-in- delhi-assembly-polls-66-35-lakh-of-them-women-1634467-2020-01-06 11 Ibid 12 Pal, Joyojeet, and Anmol Panda (2020). Twitter in the 2019 Indian General Elections: Trends of Use Across States and Parties. Source: https://www.epw.in/engage/article/twitter-2019-indian-general-elections-trends-use 13 This meme was used by Congress alleging that Kejriwal is downing the people into a dark well without their realization. 14 This was used by the AAP portraying Arvind Kejriwal as a hero.
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15 https://www.livemint.com/news/india/delhi-poll-war-aap-teases-cong-bjp-with-memes-and-spoof-videos-on-social-media- 11579079026462.html 16 Ankit Lal is the social media and information technology head of AAP. 17 Jatin Anand and Nikhil M Babu (23 Feb, 2020). How AAP won the social media battle in Delhi polls? Source: https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/how-aap-won-the-social-media-battle-in-delhi-polls/article30892667.ece 18 The Poorvanchali voters are the migrants from Bihar and U.P. Over the years they grew in very sizeable numbers. The BJP in order to attract them projected Monoj Tiwari as one of the future chief ministerial candidates. 19 He is the co-head of Delhi BJP media, social media and IT cell. 20 Jatin Anand, 2000 op.cit. 21https://www.exchange4media.com/advertising-news/delhi-assembly-polls-to-see-big-spends-on-social-media-ads- 101920.html 22 https://www.exchange4media.com/advertising-news/delhi-assembly-polls-to-see-big-spends-on-social-media-ads- 101920.html 23 https://www.exchange4media.com/advertising-news/delhi-assembly-polls-to-see-big-spends-on-social-media-ads- 101920.html
24 https://www.indiatoday.in/diu/story/no-aam-aadmi-party-this-aap-facebook-campaign-four-times-costlier-than-bjp- 1643000-2020-02-04 25 According to the Election Commission of India guidelines, it is mandatory by the candidate to provide the details of their social media accounts at the time of filing nominations.
26 https://learningcatalyst.in/eci-social-media-guidelines-elections-2019/ 27 https://internethealthreport.org/2019/the-challenge-of-democracy-in-the-digital-era/ 28https://www.deccanherald.com/election-2020/delhi-elections-2020-bjp-mounts-most-aggressive-campaign-turns-heat-on- its-rivals-802538.html 29 https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/delhi-elections-more-first-time-voters-but-not-easy-to- woo/printarticle/25626066.cms
Authors profile:
Author’s Name: Dr. Md. Mofidur Rahman Author’s profile: Dr. Md. Mofidur Rahman is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Science & Technology, Meghalaya (USTM). He did his Post Graduation and Ph.D. in Political Science from Gauhati University, Assam (India). His research area includes social exclusion, welfare politics, Muslim minority, and marginalization. His key research publication includes Encountering Citizenship: A Study on the Plight of Char-Chapori Muslims in Assam; Living at the Margin: a study on women‟s Health in the char areas of Assam; Bodo, Bodoland and Beyond Bodoland; Multiculturalism, Identity Consciousness and Ethnic Unrest in Assam; and Status of Women in Char Areas of Assam: A Case Study of Bhasanir Char of Dhubri District. He has attended various national and international seminars, workshops, and academic events.
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