18.4.09

BJP's Ad Campaign snippets


As the Campaigning for the remaining four phases of Lok Sabha polls gathers momentum, BJP on Friday set the stage for unleashing a fresh wave of publicity blitzkrieg highlighting the Manmohan Singh government’s betrayal of the aam aadmi (common man), and the party’s mantra to reduce their sufferings. BJP’s campaign-managers on Friday unveiled before mediapersons a set of five TV spots likely to go on-air from Saturday. The 15-minute-long commercials, with the themes of girl-child, aam aadmi, high taxes, black money and farmers, will be telecast on all prominent news channels. Party also plans to extend their coverage to FM radio channels. The five themes have been drawn from BJP’s manifesto for the Lok Sabha polls. Besides offering a critique of the UPA government’s track-record on the economic front which, in the party’s assessment, has had a direct bearing on the common man, the commercials also advertise BJP’s attempts to marry populism with welfarism so as to enlist the backing of various sections of the society for its power project. Thus, the publicity material on girl child professes BJP’s commitment to extend the Ladli Lakshmi Yojana, made popular by the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government in Madhya Pradesh, to the rest of the country if the NDA comes to power at the Centre. Under this scheme, the party has pledged to provide compulsory education to each girl, at least till the pre-college level. After completing Class 12, each student will be offered Rs 1 lakh so as to encourage them to take up higher education. There are three spots highlighting the plight of the common man and the farmer. With the economy entering a high tax, high prices regime, the commercials will also attempt to publicise the saffron party’s formulae to improve their lot. The party, for instance, has decided to offer 35 kg of rice or wheat at Rs 2 per kg to each BPL family every month. The third spot seeks to pass on to the people the party’s resolve to raise the income tax exemption ceiling to Rs 3 lakh. And for the debt-ridden farmers, another commercial advertises BJP’s proposal to waive all agricultural loans, while offering fresh loans at 4% rate of interest. Hoping to provide an impetus to the party’s ongoing campaign to kick off a nationwide debate on the black money stashed abroad in foreign banks and tax havens, the final spot seeks to assure the people that BJP, if installed in power, would go all out to ensure that this money comes back to the country so that it can be utilised for developmental works. The commercials carry visuals of BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Mr L K Advani and wind up with the main slogan of ``Strong leader, Decisive government.’’ The new set of commercials will supplement the spots already being beamed across the country, which have terrorism as their central theme.

No comments: