To mark four years in power, the Narendra Modi government will on Thursday begin a publicity blitz which will go on till June 3 and this time it will focus on digital media and private radio channels.
The Prime Minister’s office is giving final touches to the plan. According to sources, the government is mulling over many taglines, the frontrunner being “Saaf Niyat, Sahi Vikas” (Right Intentions, Right Development).
There will be informal press interactions in New Delhi organised by the Bharatiya Janata Party on May 24 (for electronic media), May 25 (for print), May 27 (digital and regional media) and May 28 (columnists and bloggers).
In a departure from last year, when each individual minister had presented a report card of his ministry, this year only consolidated press interactions will be done. In fact telecommunications minister Manoj Sinha had called for a press conference for Wednesday but was asked to cancel it at the last moment.
- The Modi government is looking to expand its regional footprint during its fourth anniversary celebrations.
- 12 Ministers will travel to 40 cities across the country.
- Informal press interactions in various States to showcase achievements
- No celebrities in promotional material; focus on common man
- Chai pe charcha with RJs of leading FM channels on policy initiatives.
Multi-pronged approach
To reach out to the voters in every corner, 12 ministers are being sent to 40 cities, focusing on the states where BJP wants to expand its footprint.
Three cities in Tamil Nadu (Chennai, Coimbatore and Madurai) have been shortlisted.
The only other two states where three interactions have been planned are Uttar Pradesh (Lucknow, Varanasi and Kanpur) and Maharashtra (Mumbai, Nagpur and Pune).
In Kerala which is geographically smaller than many other states but politically significant for the BJP, the ministers will be present in two cities: Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi.
The 12 Ministers who will be present at these State interactions include Finance Minister Piyush Goyal, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Health Minister J.P. Nadda, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari, Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, Human Resources and Development Minister Prakash Javedkar, Consumer Affairs Minister Ramvilas Paswan, Information and Broadcasting Minister Rajyavardhan Rathore and Textiles Minister Smriti Irani.
Unique to this year’s celebrations, the ministers will also hold informal “chai par charcha” with the radio jockeys of leading FM channels of each of these cities too.
All the creatives have been made by the Directorate of Audio Visual Publicity and none of them figure any Bollywood stars. “The creatives revolve around the common man. We have not roped in any big names like Amitabh Bachchan or Akshay Kumar,” a senior DAVP official said. The stress will be on schemes related to women, farmers and youth.
