Election Results and Management Philosophy

(Views and opinion discussed are not meant to hurt anybody’s sentiments. All the facts have been taken from news channel analysis. This is my personal opinion)

This weekend (16th May) was so crucial for our country that I decided to date my television on this occasion ;)… It was the day for the 15th Lok Sabha election results which I watched with Rajdeep Sardesai and Yogendra Yadav of CNN on the other side… I decided to write a blog where I want to express what all I feel could be the probable reasons of this kind of results…. I tried to stop myself but couldn’t… one more reason was that some of my friends haven’t followed up the elections so this blog could be of some help for them ;)

BJP is the party which I respect because it has given a bipolar nature to our general elections which used to be single or multiparty elections earlier. It has been the only party which actually rose to national status amidst 100s of other parties in the fray. Congress, I respect because of the numerous young and dynamic leaders who are more interested lately in developmental politics rather than vote bank politics since it has already been dominated by regional small players.

I think some of the reasons which led to some this kind of results are:
1) Impact of Negative Campaign: I feel derogatory campaign ”Negative Campaign ( as per marketing)” cost BJP a lot which can easily be derived from the shift in voting pattern in urban cities which used to be the forte of BJP in last 20 years. In these elections, BJP fared better in rural as compared to urban areas except Bangalore.
2) Change in Consumer Behavior: As per one of the report, UPA was ahead in first phase of election while NDA in 2nd and 3rd... so there may be widespread discontent of hung assembly which led to swing of votes in favor of congress
3) Unity and trust has been the 2 keywords taught in Organizational Behavior. Congress unity under the leadership of Gandhi family has been the most important factor while on the other hand the differences between leaders of BJP has cost dearly as the candidates selection for the constituencies have been done in the absence of key members.
4) Brand Positioning: I feel BJP also lost because of the selection of wrong candidates for the elections. I feel this has led to the vote swing in favor of congress in urban areas which were earlier the pillars for BJP.
5) Brand Extension: One of the most important reasons could be the “Brand Extension” concept which BJP tried with Lal Krishna Advani and Narendra Modi during the campaign. In our MBA we always learnt brand extension is very risky and should be avoided as it confuses the common man.
6) Coalition Politics: One of the reasons could be the breakage of alliances with TDP, BJD etc which were responsible for the presence of BJP in south India. This lead to the division of votes and hence BJP haven’t been able to get even a single seat which it could have got otherwise.

At the end I would like to summarize the discussion with the fact that at last India got a stable government and we should hope and support the government to help India to come out of the crisis.
Jai Hind!!!