2024 overseas Indians to campaign for BJP
With confidence, any psephologist can forecast the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is set to do a hat-trick in 2024.
India looking to use Digital Outreach to win at the polls
With a record of a decade of the blemishless regime, Narendra Modi is all set to bring BJP back to power in 2024. BJP and Narendra Modi have introduced a new pattern of influencing Indian voters by an inducement from the Indian diaspora. This style is not known to many, but quietly Narendra Modi has set the strategy in action. During the course of this article, I will elaborate on how BJP and Modi are successful. But at the same time, many of the Indian opposition parties have failed to compete with the speed of BJP election machinery. Rahul Gandhi travelled to 248 countries for his personal vipassana. Rahul Gandhi did not undertake any party work. State political parties like DMK, Trinamool Congress, YSR Jagan Congress, and a few others have admirers and hardcore supporters on foreign soil. But not like Overseas Friends of the BJP.
Psephology is about forecast number crunching. But modern poll analysis involves too many factors. With digital outreach, it is easier to predict.
Messaging is key
But the ground swell, groundwork, and ground atmosphere for Narendra Modi are somewhat eight out of ten gradations. When you approach an election and plan its strategies, nothing can beat the full-swing onslaught on voting patterns and logically reaching out to each voter at the grass root level. Having observed and analyzed Lok Sabha polls in the lower house of the Indian parliament since the 1980s, I could confidently add the extra efforts that Narendra Modi and Bharatiya Janata Party have been quietly performing. And that is a new output.
Since 2014, Narendra Modi has been visiting several world capitals. In total, Modi would have addressed 45/50 events of the Indian diaspora during his bilateral visits to foreign countries. I did an analysis. I had accompanied several presidents, vice presidents, and prime ministers over thirty years and watched these leaders’ interactions with the Indian diaspora. In a typical corporate style of a few hundred top businessmen and retired diplomats, in close door seminar halls, But to give credit, Narendra Modi gave a new colour to such events, by enlarging them like a massive public rally akin to such Indian political gatherings which Modi addressed.
I learned in Sydney that during the 2015 Modi visit to Australia the number of entry passes issued was more than fifty thousand. In cricket stadiums or closed huge halls. The audience consisted of the Indian diaspora from five states of Australia. It was a tough time for the Australian police to control the crowd. For the QUAD Summit, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is visiting Sydney and Canberra in February 2023. What massive preparations have begun in Sydney.
Modi makes friends quickly
In a short span of six months after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese‘s government assumed office in Australia, eight Indian Union ministers Piyush Goyal, Dr. S Jaishanker, Nitin Gadkari, Dharmendra Pradhan, R K Singh, Gajendra Shekhawat have visited Australia. What a push of well-known Bollywood playback singers lined up with Iliaraja, performing an orchestra. Indian diaspora in Australia is so strong, that Sydney ranks second to New Jersey, USA where a dense population of Hindus lives. 264 organizations function in Australia, floated by the Indian diaspora.
Can anyone believe more than one lakh Haryanvis population, formed an Association of Harvanvis in Australia? Its Chairman Sewa Singh and hundreds of volunteers were deeply involved in arranging medicines and oxygen cylinders during the Corona period in Australia.
All ethnic communities work with the Oz authority
Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, and other ethnic communities work closely with the Australian authorities. These are the so-called extended “Panna Pramukh’ for BJP. Neither Congress Party nor other regional parties have such a flamboyant setup are in foreign soil. For such a well-glued organization, due credit is to be given to BJP. Sam Pitroa due to his age failed to muster such strength for Congress.
Indian diaspora was crazy to meet and hear Modi in Japan in 2021. Modi visited two times to Germany in 2022. He energized the local Indian population.
Prior to Covid, Modi addressed several in many parts of the United States of America. United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates. Such Indian diaspora meetings are a talking point even after three or four years, among the Indian living in those countries.
What does Modi get right with the diaspora?
The difference between Narendra Modi’s and Indian political leaders’ visits such as the President of India Pranab Mukherjee meeting the Indian diaspora is that most are routine affairs. But Modi keeps the Indian diaspora engaged.
In public addresses Modi keeps his audience spellbound with his oratory skills. But other Indian leaders did not mesmerize the diaspora as Modi does. There is a catch. None could make the cut.
That Narendra Modi addresses the Indian diaspora is always focused on his next election. Each one in the audience would have gotten connected to his or her relatives in India. The buzz is always on BJP and Modi. On two important angles, Bhartiya Janata Party concentrated on the ‘next election concept’ always the BJP was on tenterhooks on poll campaigns, which no other Indian political parties attempted to do so far. BJP gave birth to two angles. Combo effect. Connect Indian diaspora with culture. To keep this twin aspect Narendra Modi and Amit Shah after the 2019 poll victory doubled up the speed of coordinating the Indian diaspora from New Delhi. Amit Shah entrusted the task of coordinating overseas Indian citizens with re-activating the “Foreign Cell of BJP.”
Modi’s man Friday overseas: Dr. Vijay Chauthaiwale
Dr. Vijay Chauthaiwale is the overseas coordinator of the BJP. His assignment is to coordinate between the foreign department of the BJP and with the Union Ministry of External Affairs. Dr. Vijay has frequent meetings with Dr. S Jaishankar, the Foreign Minister which is key to the success. Dr. Chauthaiwale is a Ph.D. in-charge, Foreign Affairs Department Member of the National Executive of the Bharatiya Janata Party. Helping Dr. Vijay is another outfit from the Government of India, the Indian Council of Cultural Relations. Its chief Vinay Saharabhude is another hard-core RSS man, who also brings in coordination between Overseas Friends of BJP and the ICCR regional outfit in charge. Modi’s concept to integrate Indian diaspora with Indian culture, both Vijay and Vinay Maharashtrians play a pivotal role.
What is OFBJP?
BJP’s global outreach platform is called the Overseas Friends of BJP (OFBJP). OFBJP has chapters in more than 40 countries and is comprised of well-wishers of the BJP. Interaction with the Indian Diaspora has been an essential component of overseas visits of Prime Minister Modi. Vijay is actively involved in coordinating community receptions with Prime Minister Narendra Modi across the globe.
Additionally, Vijay Chauthaiwale interacts with foreign embassies, diplomats, and delegates of various countries to put forward party perspectives on issues of mutual interests. Once a month, Dr. Vijay organizes a meeting of foreign diplomats posted in Chanakyapuri in New Delhi with the BJP President Jagat Prakash Nadda. In more than 25/ 30 important countries a strong presence of cadres of Overseas Friends of BJP. Dr. Vijay also connects the Hindu Swayam Sewak Sangh activists with the OFBJP. The evolvement of such a concept to bring all the cadres and activists under one umbrella was the brainchild of Narendra Modi. An insider explained to me that Modi wants to capitalize on the Diaspora meetings with coordination by the Foreign Cell of BJP. During Lok Sabha polls, such contacts often come in handy.
Opposition found wanting
During Lok Sabha polls, this strategy is not put into action by the Indian opposition, especially the principal opposition Party, the Indian National Congress. That is why BJP gets a share of two to three percentage votes due to active Indian diaspora participation in an indirect manner to induce voters.
With the above narratives, 2024 is not that tough for Bharatiya Janata Party so far polling of votes is concerned. Congress’s failure and BJP’s success to attract overseas Indian citizens and that is easily encashable.
Note:
1. Text in Blue points to additional data on the topic.
2. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of PGurus.
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