There’s little doubt about the event marketing and buzz-creating skills of Team Modi. In 2014, after the dismissive chaiwalla sneer by Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar, the BJP immediately seized the opportunity to create an all-out chaiwalla campaign, complete with chai pe charcha streetcorner meetings, contrasting Narendra Modi’s subaltern up-by-my-bootstraps Great Indian Story with the inherited privileges of the dynastical Congress. Today as a replacement to the chaiwalla, the chowkidar campaign has been mounted. But this time the ‘Main Bhi Chowkidar’ cry sounds like a forced defensive reaction prompted by Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s repeated accusations of “Chowkidar Chor Hai”. Sympathisers were all encouraged to add chowkidar to their social media handles as a riposte to Rahul that we are Read More
