How the BJP Wins: Inside India s Greatest Election Machine by Prashant JhaMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Hooter: A journalist's POV on the ground specifically around 2017 UP elections
Prashant Jha was on the ground reporting on the 2017 UP elections which set the baseline for 2019 especially after the losses of Bihar and Delhi after high decibel campaigns. Irrespective of their idealogies, the book provides an insight on what is making it work. Professionalism in dealing with politics is probably the summary here - going to the grass roots and creating a scalable and replicatable framework that could be leveraged across the country rejuvenated the grassroots which are the true powerhorses of democracy and not the airconditioned hallways of the power capitals that most media like to pick their soundbytes from. Whilst the ideology warfare ensured middle class and upwards swayed to the tunes of the political parties and broke friendships on, the true power centres of democracy irrespective of religion were getting houses, gas and other last mile government services that made all the high decibel debates purely what they were - all noise no sound. If cinema is the silver screen, politics is the golden screen and BJP has figured how to play it out at the moment. This book doesn't come out with any secret formulae but substantiates the ground realities and introduces a lot of players who define the next generation of this party- folks who are slogging it out in the field today and rising through the ranks like Ram Madhav who ran the entire North East expansion strategy. This book provides an academic insight into the electoral process and the mathematics that goes in defining victory using the BJP rise as its case study focussing on the duality of Modi and Shah who are playing their roles to perfection.
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