Consultants and strategists are the new generals in war rooms

Loudspeakers are blaring with appeals to citizens — mostly unknown to the autorickshaw driver transporting the source of the announcements — to vote for so and so candidate. Fitted with the candidate’s photo, party flag and, in many cases, film songs customised for the party, the attempt is to capture the attention of residents who happen to be at home around the same time. This is one of the campaign strategies of most candidates.

Then there are some who have roped in external agencies who are, instead of targeting a random audience, finding out which pockets are likely to press the button in favour of a party or a candidate. They work inconspicuously, returning to their clients with information such as which booth would vote for them (based on past numbers) or which is the most conducive mode to advertise his/her credentials.

Kenny Ramanand, who does micro-campaigning strategies and data strategy for candidates, said it was all about creating local knowledge. “For example, we did a survey of one particular pocket in Bengaluru and found that most of them tune into one specific regional channel during a certain time frame. So, the candidate could start advertising more on that channel to reach the target audience,” he said.

This also involves collecting booth-wise information to help candidates understand which areas are in their favour and which are not, based on which they can design their campaign strategy.

Ishan Russel, a New Delhi-based strategy consultant, said external agencies were being hired to advise candidates on how best to reach out to citizens with the ‘real issues’, including in tasks such as helping them create manifestos to ensure that the micro-level issues are included.

External consultants and strategists are also being roped in for ‘media training’, which not only involves candidates learning how to present themselves on social media, but also in media interviews.

“We are hired to streamline and bring in focus to the campaign strategy as often, there is not enough expertise within the party. It is mostly an advisory role,” said a strategist, adding that willingness to seek an edge was not limited to candidates of particular parties, or those belonging to a particular age group.

No one was willing to comment on the cost, but one of them said, "Figures of money in politics are overrated. They pay us as much as any business we would do this for would."

But do they care?

The parties too don’t seem to mind. Praveen Chakravarty, who heads the newly created Data Analytics Department of the Congress and was an external expert before becoming a part of the party, said candidates were free to hire outside help.

“We do all of that (booth-figure study and the like) in our department. But candidates are free to seek external help as well,” he said.

What is new in the Karnataka elections? “Social media is a new channel of communication. We also have increased our ground presence — what we call our ground game. Compared to more public rallies earlier, now we do a lot of door-to-door campaigning and have booth committees,” said Mr. Chakravarty.