JOURNAL OF CRITICAL REVIEWS 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 3194 JOURNAL OF CRITICAL REVIEWS 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.