By Srinivasan K. Rangachary
It every election, all-India or in states, you will hear of “backroom boys”. The media will tell you how they designed and are running poll campaigns of this or that party. Screaming headlines such as “War room: Backroom boys fight it for stalwarts” would appear in newspapers with a text following to convince us that but for these ‘backroom boys’ the campaign would not have been innovative and competitive.
But nobody is clear who actually meet the definition of “backroom boys”. In the recent elections in Punjab, media reports said a “brigade of backroom boys” was devising strategies for Congress campaign. Who were these backroom boys? Twenty young students from different disciplines monitoring every type of information floating in print and electronic media for designing effective political strategies for moulding public opinion in favour of Congress. “Technologically well equipped, with several LCDs and Internet connected laptops,” said one report, “the War Room is the nerve-centre of the party’s ongoing electoral battle. Complete with a conference room and audio-visual gadgetry, the hub of the party strategists has charts hung around walls about the assembly constituencies with their political history.”
Nerve-centre? Doesn’t this sound bizarre? Was the Congress party’s “entire” electoral operation “directed” from this war room, as the media reports said? Then what the Congress national and state leaders were doing — just following the directions of these twenty boys and girls in their twenties sitting with broadband-operated systems in the war room? The reality was that these young people were monitoring and operating media campaigns, social networks and print advertisements of Congress and its competitors. Their job was to update Congress leaders and candidates on what their competitors were doing in the various forms of media and throw in suggestions on how to meet their challenges.
After all, these 20 were students from colleges and universities. The main aim behind setting up the “war room” was not to design and run Congress election campaign but to monitor reports, postings and advertisements in print, electronic and online media. This “war room” was no more than information room. The Congress idea was that while the campaigners and candidates were busy with campaigning in the field, the “war room” monitored, collected and sifted the data and passed it on to them. One of the many ways in which the “war room” proved useful was in updating the campaigners and candidates on who joined or defected from the party the day before. There were so many comings and goings in political parties before elections that a Congress campaigner or candidate might say things in praise of someone who had left the party the previous day or attacked a political enemy who switched over to Congress. The “backroom boys” thus helped campaigners and candidates avoid embarrassment of saying things in praise or condemnation of someone they shouldn’t have said.
But then why call it a “war room” and why call those inside it for a few weeks “backroom boys”? Does it not create an impression that at the apex of political parties there are men and women who are not in tune with the times and cannot design and invent their party’s election strategies and campaigns? A leading financial newspaper is currently running a series on ‘backroom boys’ who are working as aides to various political leaders. There is someone called Kanishka Singh, the principal secretary of Rahul Gandhi who “advises” the scion of the Nehru family. Now, as far as secretarial help goes, every leader has it. Secretaries are often trusted men and women of the leaders. They are picked up on the basis of trustworthiness. They move about with their leaders like shadows. They see their leaders both in their public and private moments. In short, secretaries develop some kind of privilege by the sheer virtue of their closeness, loyalty and confidence to throw in pieces of advice on occasions to them. Their general mandate is not to advise but to obey.
So it would be wrong to think that political leaders are guided by backroom boys. Right or wrong, leaders are on top, regardless of how they have reached there and how they sustain themselves there. They will never allow election strategies or campaigns to be designed and run by backroom boys. Because they think they know the pulse of the people best. And you cannot fault them: politics is their career. Just as a man who made medicine his career knows illnesses and cures best, so does the man who made politics his career know the illusions and realities of elections.
Young people and computer systems are useful for data management (about constituencies, records of past elections, lists of candidates), real-time news of rivals’ statements, moves or faux pas from the net or television, and posting messages and orchestrating campaigns on social media websites. These kids are not designers or directors of election campaigns. Even though Akhilesh Yadav, UP state president of Samajwadi Party has set up a “war room”, his father and supreme party leader, Mulayam Singh Yadav is the last to take any advice on campaign from “those kids”. INAV