To return to energy, Kerala CPM banks on ‘Visual Vijayan Vote’

At the press meet in Kottayam, Kerala’s most seen political face is doing what he’s finest at – telling the media what precisely he desires to do. Not a phrase extra, not a syllable much less. The clinically managed supply is nothing new to those that have watched this 77-year-old stalwart of each occasion and authorities.
What is new is that the state’s laidback TV viewers have taken to the measured tone. Over the final one 12 months, for the reason that outbreak of the pandemic in March, Vijayan was on TV at 6 pm on weekdays, giving a methodical account of the day’s Covid state of affairs. Malayalam information channels noticed viewerships soar to leisure channel highs.
Party insiders anticipate a corresponding voter response, notably from girls. The cumulative every day build-up of a reassuring chief-in-charge is what the occasion banks on because the state votes on April 6. Called ‘triple V’ (Visual Vijayan Vote), that is essential to an election that can’t be taken with no consideration. You can by no means rule out the Congress which beneath Rahul Gandhi scored an upset win within the final Lok Sabha polls. The BJP-led third entrance is out to win seats and develop into kingmaker.
Further, Vijayan is asking for a rerun, a departure from 4 many years of alternating regimes. He hasn’t made the duty any simpler for himself by junking confirmed expertise and choosing younger and middling newcomers as candidates.

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The marketing campaign package deal is the acquainted checklist of welfare measures and developmental schemes properly begun and half carried out. “Give me another term to complete the tasks,” the CM seeks of the voters.
At public conferences in Pala and Vaikom, the voice is extra persuasive than aggressive and it comes filtered via the masks which is on all through the general public look.
He is at his tactful finest in Pala, the house turf of the Kerala Congress, who until the opposite day was a Congress ally. Led by Jose Okay Mani, the regional outfit crossed over to the rival Left within the run-up to the polls. The Marxian baptism of an aspirational, entrepreneurial occasion of Christian believers is on take a look at right here. Vijayan extends energetic spiritual respect, a giant leap from passive tolerance. He additionally drops names that ought to reduce throughout to the group that appears extra parental than younger. “TCS and Ernst & Young will bring jobs and prosperity”.

The tone shifts from capital to social in Vaikom earlier than a packed auditorium subsequent to the Shiva Temple recognized for the historic battle of the oppressed castes for temple entry. The day’s marketing campaign ends amidst milling crowds again in Kottayam.
“Voters are in no mood to do content analysis of campaign-speak,” chips in a neighborhood pundit. “Instead, what would work is the new Visual Vijayan.” He recounts a Kottayam story in help.
The Marxist ballot marketing campaign put a face to the title for the primary time right here in 1984. Till then, you could possibly solely show the occasion image and the candidate’s title. Fresh out of legislation school and SFI’s state president then, Suresh Kurup was the candidate for Lok Sabha from Kottayam.

His pal and comrade C P John, who managed the uphill marketing campaign, someway slipped in {a photograph} of the candidate on ballot posters – blasphemous character projection in occasion circles. Half means via the marketing campaign, Indira Gandhi was assassinated and the sympathy wave swept away all rivals of the Congress, besides Suresh. If that is what a black & white image may do then, allow us to look forward to the serial impact of full-scale tv.