Race Course Road

India Today
September 28, 1998

RACE COURSE ROAD
Marketing Atalji

For Vajpayee, the style is as important as the substance

Prabhu Chawla

Nothing sells like success. But in a hostile territory dominated by powerful and established brands, one needs an extra push to market an old brand in a new avatar. Undoubtedly Atal Bihari Vajpayee has been the most popular non-Congress leader of the past 10 years. But his ratings have taken a severe beating since he took office in March this year. After much soul searching and introspection, Vajpayee's aides have realised that the fault lies not in his ineffectiveness or non-performance but with the poor marketing of an otherwise clean political giant.

This is exactly what has spurred the marketing whizz kids to formulate a new strategy to sell Vajpayee as the most effective non-Congress prime minister the country ever had. Since there is no credible success story yet to sell, the BJP spin doctors have chosen to repackage his oratorial skill -- Vajpayee's usp -- to portray him as the most widely acceptable prime minister.

Six months ago, polls showed Vajpayee's popularity rating was higher than all his rivals combined. Now he is being perceived as a weak and compromising leader who is struggling hard to keep his government afloat. Realising that his personal popularity was nosediving, South Block has been forced to change tack. Now that political stability is more or less assured and confidence is on the rise, aides of the prime minister appear to be more aggressive and accessible. With the country's economy showing signs of recovery, PMO officials feel the prime minister should interact with the press at every station he visits and answer questions on subjects ranging from potato to politics. Not only are his public engagements better organised, much effort goes into minute details to make each one of his appearances highly effective.

Last week for example, the prime minister floored a 1,000-plus audience comprising Delhi's social elite by reciting one of his poems, even while he was speaking on India's nuclear policy. When a determined section of the audience requested him to read out some of his poems, Vajpayee expressed his inability on the plea that he was not carrying his books with him. But he himself was taken by surprise when one of his young aides pulled out a folder containing all the poems the prime minister had penned recently. The official later confided that he had anticipated the event and had therefore come prepared.

Now South block mandarins are arming themselves with all the arsenal to help the prime minister to face any situation in India and abroad. To start with, they have decided that Vajpayee be allowed to interact and speak in his own language, Hindi. In fact, Vajpayee is under pressure to speak in English when he addresses the UN general assembly for the first time as prime minister. But his close advisers feel that he would be able to carry more conviction if he were to speak in the language with which he is more familiar. In fact, when as foreign minister he addressed the General Assembly in 1978 it was in Hindi that he spoke. And his advisers realise that, as far as Vajpayee is concerned, the style is as important as the substance. His Red Fort speech on August 15, read out from a written text, seemed uninspiring, though it contained several major policy decisions. Vajpayee's success depends as much on the medium as the message.

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