ABSTRACT
An average Lok Sabha parliamentary constituency has 2 million voters (about 20 times the average British constituency) and some are spread across hundreds of miles, encompassing a wide variety of rural and urban populations from different social strata. Much of this vast and varied electorate is savvy about politics in general and acutely aware of its own interests. Yet people are unlikely to recognise the names of all the individual candidates, and even the incumbent may remain unfamiliar to most voters. Parties’ campaign strategies take this scale and diversity of audience, awareness and setting into account, and so deploy a wide range of media and campaigning techniques. These are expensive and labour-intensive, and have to be carried out within established electoral conventions under the watchful eye of 11 million ECI officials. Thus, like a military campaign, an effective election campaign in an Indian constituency relies on discipline, shrewd strategy, intelligence, optimum deployment of personnel, and a judicious amount of ‘shock and awe’.
