Among his by now famous quotes is how in the book Modi Effect written by well known British journalist Lance Price, when Prime Minister Modi “was asked about his Varanasi campaign, he told him (Price) to interview me. I was quoted thrice in it.” Meet Sunil Deodhar, RSS pracharak-turned-BJP poll strategist, who has changed the party’s fate in Tripura by his clever interplay of tribal sentiment, sakha mechanics and social media presence.
In a State where BJP had a dismal 1.54% vote share in the 2013 Assembly elections, Deodhar has made electoral history by helping the party launch a formidable onslaught on the Left Front with “two-and-a-half-years of hard work” where he put his RSS training and prior electoral experience to good use.
“We set up various morchas of youth, women, farmers and OBCs, who comprise 35% of Tripura’s population and have been totally deprived,”he said in a recent interview. The anti-incumbency wave due to the Marxists’ “climate of fear and intolerance of opposition,” coupled with Modiji’s schemes like Mudra Bank, Pradhan Mantri Ujjala Yojana and Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana gave us confidence,” he added.
Addressing a youth rally in Tripura he tweeted: “local Congressmen came to meet me; they wanted to join the BJP, wanted me to visit their places, which I did, organised various sabhas there. I picked up the talented people among them, gave them party responsibility. That is how, from the Congress, we built the basic unit at the lowest level. It is only in the last six months or so that disgruntled CPM workers have begun joining us.”
As part of the Modi Doot Yojana, reports add, the BJP youth brigade distributed booklets in trains about Modiji’s schemes in both Bangla and Kokborok languages. Deodhar’s war room engaged social media experts to “edit videos, make small capsules, draw cartoons… I would get about 700-750 mobile phone numbers, out of which 200-300 would have WhatsApp. We made Excel sheets, started sending them messages.”
The fact that people could become BJP members online was another masterstroke and the party ranks swelled from 10,000 members in 2009 to 1,75,000 in 2015. In a state with 25 lakh voters, “we now have about four lakh members in total,” added the man of the moment.
Sharing some pictures from victory celebration at @BJP4Tripura Pradesh Karyalaya.#TripuraElection2018 pic.twitter.com/cTEquGuHC2
— Sunil Deodhar (@Sunil_Deodhar) March 3, 2018
Deodhar also succeeded in mobilizing people’s support by launching massive agitations around simmering social issues across all 60 constituencies and devising popular election slogans — ‘Chalo Paltai’ (Let’s flip it) and ‘Tripura te garib mor-e, mukhya mantri chopper te chor-e’ (Poor die in Tripura, the CM rides on chopper). The non-cadre based Congress, on the other hand, “never tried to enter the tribal areas of the state. It remained a Bengali party with no ideology,” he highlighted in the interview talking of the factors that led to BJP’s thumping victory under his leadership.
Deodhar, the prahari of Tripura, has today’s emerged as the architect of Bharatiya Janata Party’s stupendous win with his political savvy and meticulous planning, that involved nurturing youth and strengthening the roots of the organisation by using Twitter, WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook and other social media platforms to the party’s advantage. The man from Mumbai, who is the newest star in Tripura’s political firmament is definitely someone to watch keenly in the days to come.