Man of Extremes

Whatever little I have followed NaMo over the past few years, I think it will not be an exaggeration to conclude that his has been a career of extremes.

It goes without saying that NaMo is arguably best orator that India has seen in a long time. He has this uncanny knack of coming out with funny/profound/thought provoking one-liners/examples at the most appropriate time. He is gifted with this ability to present the most commonplace ideas in the most interesting manner. He has a way with words in short. One of the things that he said in one of his interviews aptly summaries his political career, especially what has happened in the last few years. He said “aafat aayi toh badi aur khushi ke din aaye toh woh bhi bade” and such has been his political life. Either one would be a hardcore NaMo fan or a NaMo critic. Very few people have had a ‘neutral’ view about NaMo.

Let us consider some events that have shaped his career in the recent past. His record as a Gujarat CM is something that has been debated more than anything else on prime time. I don’t want to get into the data as there are various sources providing the same data with huge variances. But a common thread that runs across the data derived from various sources is usage of terms like ‘largest’ or ‘fastest’ or ‘biggest’ with regards to the achievements of Gujarat under the leadership of NaMo. A NaMo critic may argue that Gujarat’s record on certain indicators like infant mortality rate has not been impressive. Apart from few slip ups, Gujarat has done well than most of the states adding a feather to NaMo’s cap. So the ‘extreme’ growth figures are largely justified.

Gujarat riots were one of the most of unfortunate incidents in Gujarat’s history. If someone is at fault then he should be punished accordingly but whether someone is guilty or not is for the judiciary to decide. But in NaMo’s case lot of people passed judgment without waiting for law to take its own course. Like he also mentioned once that no politician in India’s history has been targeted the way he has been in the past few years. Another extreme here: most targeted leader

Recently we witnessed another extreme: the ‘most exciting & extremely well planned campaign’ in the history of Indian politics. It has had far reaching effect if one were to consider the number of people it managed to mobilize and the number of seats BJP (read NaMo) ended up winning! He travelled more than 3 lakh kms, addressed more than 430 public meetings apart from his 3-D rallies and ‘chai pe charcha’ ! He not only managed to hold entire country’s attention over such a long period of campaigning but at the same time influenced people’s opinion positively by conveying the same message though various mediums with great effectiveness.

When you manage to influence so many people at the same time with your ideas, you are bound to get some media attention. According to CMS media labs, NaMo got 7.5 times more TV coverage (read ‘most coverage’) than Rahul Gandhi. So one hand he put in more efforts than anyone else to win people’s hearts/votes and on the other media coverage helped his cause. It was my eureka moment when I multiplied the number of seats won by Congress by 7.5 and got the number which was ‘extremely close’ to the number of seats won by NDA!

After all the hard work, it was the results time. And I must say NaMo did ‘extremely well’ with BJP managing to win majority of the seats. Again you would have cynics arguing that BJP only won 31% of vote share or 38% with allies included. But one cannot deny that it was and will remain ‘one of the biggest’ margins ever in terms of number seats won by a party. The achievement is even more noteworthy in the era of coalition government. And post the results; it was time for the ceremony! More than 4000 plus peopled gathered at his swearing-in ceremony. As I mentioned earlier: “khushi ke din aaye to who bhi bade!” Being a patriot that NaMo is, I am assuming it was his way of informing the world that “a new India has arrived”

Elections highlights

Though I have already written few posts on elections, I got tempted to write one more! Given below are the highlights of 2014 election. Please note the list is not exhaustive as I am only writing those things which are coming to my mind while I am writing them! So you can expect annexure to this post at a later date!

Let us start with the agenda of the parties. BJP’s agenda was to offer development and good governance to the people under the leadership of NaMo. BJP allies had a common agenda: to convey that they were NaMo’s allies and that is it! Rest of the opposition parties had a combined agenda: to criticize NaMo. They were so insecure and focused on bringing NaMo down that they lost their individuality in the process and ended up doing publicity for NaMo!

I have already done AAP’s AAPraisal in my previous post but just to reiterate they only managed to win four seats and that too in one state and that too not Delhi! Fortunately they fought Punjab election like a state election where they addressed local issues so they were able to garner decent support enabling them to open their account in general elections. Otherwise at national level they got more than a billion thumbs down and that is quite a number! Jaadu was AAP’s symbol but it was BJP which managed to sweep the polls in style! Tough times ahead for AAP with Shazia Ilmi and Capt Gopinath leaving the sinking ship (please notice the word-play here: usage of words ‘Capt’ and ‘ship’!)

Congress prior to the election was competing with BJP to retain power and now it will compete with AIADMK and TMC to at least get opposition leader’s position! Had Congress put in even fraction of the efforts, they used up in criticizing NaMo, to reach out to people and for some genuine work, they would have seen better numbers but lost anyways!

Defeat of people like Nandan Nilekani, Meera Sanyal and many others proves individual capacity is one thing but at the end of the day it is the brand that you work for and represent that matters!

Caste based politics didn’t work in Bihar and UP. Hopefully, this is the end of such politics and not an aberration. People voted for a clear majority helping form a stable government which will not be bound by coalition pressure and will take firm decisions and be responsible for it. It was the best time to be a BJP ally!

NaMo mania had reached such heights that BJP would have ended up winning majority of the seats even in US presidential elections if it went to polls around the same time! NaMo’s intent was quite visible in his rallies where one could see how desperate he was to serve the nation and make India proud. It is a small thing but I believe clarity of thought in his speeches conveyed his message well to the audience. BJP and NaMo’s marketing acumen will become a case-study for future generations

Threatening entry

I remember studying Porter’s five forces model in college explaining how five forces namely: bargaining power of buyers, bargaining power of suppliers, threat of new entrants, threat of substitutes and rivalry within the industry impact the overall competitiveness and attractiveness (profitability) of the industry/market. Last few days we have been seeing how one of these factors has come to the forefront in two industries/sectors. The factor that I am referring to is the ‘threat of new entrant’ and two industries/sectors are aviation and online retail. AirAsia’s ambitious plans to take the aviation sector by storm with its competitive pricing strategy (please notice the word-play here: usage of words ‘storm’ and ‘aviation’!) and Amazon’s attempt to sweep the online retail marketplace like an aggressive river flowing at full speed (kindly again notice the word-play here: usage of words ‘Amazon’ and ‘river’!) has made everyone take note of the same

Interesting thing is to see how existing players are readying themselves to face the upcoming onslaught in the form of cut-throat competition (most likely to lessen profitability). On one hand, we have AirAsia India, a JV among Tata sons, Telestra Tradeplace and Malaysian low-cost airline AirAsia, which promises to redefine the budget air travel with their unbelievably low prices (Google search about their India strategy, you will come across some interesting stuff) but right now facing hurdles in starting their india operations. They allege that the entire industry is trying to block their entry because they are very good at what they do. Technical argument being put forward by the industry association is that FDI is allowed in aviation to help the existing carriers and not the new ones as it will only lead to more competition! I am not an expert to comment on the matter but the fact remains that it is the ‘threat of new entrant’ which has got the existing players worried as it is likely to impact the attractiveness (profitability) of the industry in a negative way. Anyways, most of them are not making profits! Till the time the deadlock remains, it is the end user who loses out

Then we see a more acceptable way of tackling competition. Flipkart recently bought Myntra to take on Amazon. I always thought Flipkart was the best thing that happened to online retail but then Amazon launched its one-day delivery campaign which was quickly followed-up by Flipkart with its own one-day delivery campaign! Of course, the service comes at a cost but there are people who are ready to pay little extra for that service. This just goes to prove that there was always that scope for improvement but it was made possible by Amazon (a new entrant). New entrants will always try to innovate and provide something ‘extra’ vis-à-vis existing players, which in turn force the existing players to improve. I am sure various factors impacted this deal including cost advantage, Flipkart’s desire to hit the online fashion market in a big way and others. But Amazon’s entry certainly expedited the same! Finally, a word of appreciation for the genius Michael Porter who developed strategy models like ‘Porter’s five forces’ years back but they are still useful/applicable today, providing a basic framework for studying industries’ competitiveness

AAPraisal

It is appraisal time across companies, so I thought of doing one myself for AAP. I call it AAPraisal!

India’s population can be divided in three categories when it comes to AAP: One that supports AAP, second one that does not support AAP and the third one that used to support AAP when it made its debut in Delhi but lost faith afterwards. I fall into the third category. It was really nice to see a party come out of nowhere to try and make a positive difference to people’s lives. It was almost like witnessing a revolution. I would have ideally liked AAP to start on a small scale (Delhi was the perfect launch pad) and then graduate to national level. Being a conservative investor myself, I prefer a fixed return scheme over some risky instrument giving high returns and a better part of India also thinks on the same lines I guess. If you draw parallels with AAP, I was hoping after winning Delhi, they would take it easy and consistently grow like a fixed return scheme over a long period of time. But now I get a feeling that it was almost like winning a lottery! They won the lottery in the form of Delhi, became big overnight and lost everything in 49 days! They got too big for themselves. Clean slate and a uniting factor like ‘fight for a corruption free government’ worked in their favor to start with but trying to solve every problem on earth in their own unique manner and that too quickly failed them. After winning and then leaving Delhi in no time they decided to focus on general elections. It was more than disappointing for the people of Delhi who voted a new party like theirs to power hoping for a better government only to be left without government after 49 days.

With the Delhi fiasco to their credit (or discredit), the slate was not clean anymore. Now the destination was national elections. To attract attention statements were made against other parties, AK decided to fight the election himself from the same place where a national party’s prime ministerial candidate was contesting. They campaigned aggressively with people from all walks of life coming to support in their own capacity. Result: they could only win four seats! Even shocking was the fact that they did not win a single seat in their home ground Delhi! It was an outright rejection of a party which had just won the assembly elections in Delhi and hearts across India. Like their way of working, their results have also been quite extreme and all this happened in hardly few months’ time. Now they again plan to go to Delhi’s voters apologizing for exiting suddenly and requesting another mandate to come to power. It will be interesting to see Delhi’s response to their request and whether they will manage to comeback to power again. We will know soon if the saying ‘Subah ka bhoola shyam ko ghar aaye to use bhula nhi khete’ actually applies in politics!

Exit door for exit polls

We are an impatient lot (myself included). Even though the election results were due on 16th May, news channels were eagerly awaiting for the last phase of election to conclude so that they could start projecting number of seats that parties were likely to garner and who would form the next government. (It is as if all criminals and wrong-doers had gone on strike in India and there was nothing happening in the country worth reporting till the election results were out. Funnily, you would have noticed once the elections got over, channels started finding enough ‘regular news’ to report and manage to hold your attention even without any elections! They are so good at it!

Last few days any news channel that one switched to, one could see numbers getting flashed on TV screen indicating likely performance of parties at state and national level. Of course, the numbers differed from one channel to another, reasons being: tie-ups with various research companies having their own unique methodology, differences in sample type/size etc. One may try to be as neutral as possible but I am sure personal prejudices also would have played a role in at least interpreting the results. Despite all these limitations and past record of highly off-the-mark projections, we had experts on all channels screaming from the rooftops and explaining as to why the results (exit poll numbers) had come the way they had, what went right for the winners, what went wrong for the losers and how those fence sitters would play a vital role in formation of the government, mind you all this drama happened while we were still awaiting the ‘actual results!’

If there is one issue on which I agree with the congress party wholeheartedly, it is their decision to refrain from indulging in any kind of debate on exit polls. One may argue here saying they have been avoiding it as they were most likely to be on the losing side. But the fact remains that even during the last couple of elections, which I followed with great interest; they were never keen on discussing the exit poll numbers. Also please note that my reasons for disliking exit polls are very different from those of Congress party. I don’t like the idea of speculating when it comes to elections as it takes the fun out of it and Congress does not like it as they are mostly shown as a close/distant second! But now that as a party they have taken a stand, they will regret it later in case there are exit polls in future showing Congress on the winning side as they will not be in a position to participate in exit poll debates and capitalize on the same!

This time the situation was such that predicting an NDA was like stating the obvious! And still when it came to numbers, most of the channels got it wrong! I just feel we need to rid ourselves of this obsession with exit polls and wait for the ‘actual result’ as exit polls do not serve any purpose. Let there be no place for speculation in such matters, it just takes the excitement out of the whole exercise. And considering most of the projected poll numbers were poles apart from the actual numbers, it is about time we showed the exit door to the exit polls!

Election news

Days before the elections started, we have been hearing, listening, seeing, reading (literally getting attacked) from all possible sources as to why it is important to vote and why this time we will see people coming out in record breaking numbers to exercise their franchise. So it didn't come as a surprise when I (heard/saw/read) that we have seen our highest voter turnout ever! But then again we should see this number in relation to other numbers/facts mentioned below.
First shocker: election expenditure for 2014 elections increased by 131% to 3426 cr compared to 2009 elections! Of course, one may give an excuse saying inflation has played its part but one of the major reasons for such a hike has been the huge amount of money spent on creating awareness about voting and rightly so. Now, add to that money spent by political parties (figures unknown) to market their respective candidates and encourage their 'support base' to go out and vote to ensure their victory. I am sure the increase percentage here is much more than 131% vis-a-vis last general elections considering the fact that these parties have been giving a tough competition to the corporate world in terms of marketing blitzkrieg they have undertaken in order to sell their respective candidates and political agenda. Add to that vibrant news media coming out with series of programs/news articles throwing light on important election issues, enlightening and in turn pushing their readers/viewers to go out and vote. Finally, the fascinating contest involving leaders like Rahul Gandhi, Narendra Modi and Arvind Kejriwal with their numerous rallies giving much required boost to their respective support base. So on every front we notice that the resources put in terms of efforts, money, manpower etc has jumped manifold to obtain one objective: to achieve higher turnout of voters compared to 2009 elections. And result: voter turnout percentage increased from 58.2% in 2009 to 66.4% this time around. So much incremental input for an incremental output of 8.2%! Though, I do agree even a small percent increase is a huge increase in terms of absolute numbers and I am not an expert on such matters but as a layman I still feel the 66.4% number is low considering the quantum of resources that have gone into creating awareness about voting.