The bugle for 15th General Lok Sabha elections has already been blown. Political parties have started coming back to people with their ‘what they did’, ‘what others did not do’ and ‘what they will do’. Campaigning is one of the critical elements of electioneering and in India it plays a vital role in the final decision as the emotional speeches delivered during rallies can change the electoral mood against even for the probable winner.

India has a complex demography and that is reflected in any of the exercises including elections that involves the whole country. The geographic diversity of people makes it tough at times even for the political parties to reach to them in just a few rallies. And then the key leader of each party must reach to every main voter pocket, else the opposing party will take the advantage by telling the inhabitants that the other party is neglecting them. So the key leaders have to address at every nook and corner for increasing the prospects of their party. It is based on the direct marketing principle – ‘Reach as many people as you can to expect higher success ratio’.

India has a very high threat perception as a nation. Due to so many factors, politicians have always been a soft target of terrorists and killing them makes big news. So the government – law and order ensuring agencies, have to make every possible effort to keep the politicians secure. At the same time during elections, politicians are in the field. The police and other security agencies are busy in ensuring safety of the politicians organising rallies and reaching to the masses. It demands a fool proof bandobast. This arrangement comes at a cost which is to be borne by the government, eating up a lot of tax payers’ money. Such arrangements get intensified as the information agencies get any further intercepts like the recent one, after which the home minister of India, wrote to 39 VVIPs about the increased threat perception to their lives.

This will never mean that these politicians will not attend rallies. Elections are do or die situation for politicians and they need to campaign to win. I am not any security expert, but surely, securing a single rally of each of these politicians could cost the government in crores (Millions) of Indian rupees.

In place of all this, the election commission and the political parties together with government must devise policies encouraging extensive usage of technology in campaigning. These could be from the basic medium like a radio to podcasts and webcasts. The leaders could also make use of television channels, although private, if there are some restrictions on using the state owned Doordarshan.

Using technology would be of great help to the politicians and it will surely save a lot of my money, being a tax payer. There is one advantage to face-to-face interactions – the politicians come to know about the response. But this can be very easily done under present technology available. Political parties can get statistics about how many people, from which regions, etc. heard their radio speech over an FM channel. Or how many people were watching them on a television programme. Similar statistics can be had for the web based tools. Even people can get back to these leaders through sms, emails or telephone calls. That will make the programme interactive. Some might have suspicions about the success of such campaigns, as how many people will be using a particular media. But at least a radio and a television set is available everywhere in India. One more good that technology could do, is single speech could be delivered in local languages across the country simultaneously. That way a national leader could be heard by people across the regions.

It is high time that the authorities must insist political parties to explore these alternative methods of reaching to masses. If they have any doubts, let them check with the general information about the political activities of India that people come to know through news channels over television, radio and sources over Internet. The results will definitely encourage parties to go ahead because these sources have made the leaders a public figure. That is why leaders like Sonia Gandhi, L K Advani, Lalu Yadav, Sharad Pawar (just for reference) and other stalwarts are known throughout the country even if people in many regions have not seen them physically.

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