Can the 'Bharat Nirman' ad campaign fill in for Manmohan Singh's silence?

The UPA has launched its ‘Bharat Nirman’ advertisement campaign with slickly shot television advertisements but doubts are already being raised on whether this information campaign will sour public sentiment. BJP’s Sudhangshu Mittal believes that the UPA’s Bharat Nirman and NDA’s India Shining are completely different. “The India Shining Campaign was started by the Ministry of Finance, not by the BJP. Political campaign supplements a political effort. If you have a bad product, then no campaign can help you,” Mittal said in a debate hosted by Rajdeep Sardesai on CNN-IBN. [caption id=“attachment_783805” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Manish Tiwari has been going gaga over the Bharat Nirman campaign. PTI.[/caption] Mittal believes that BJP lost because of its allies’ poor performance in the South and not because of the over zealousness of the advertisement campaign. “The Congress is putting out propaganda but do they really think they have delivered?” Alyque Padamsee, noted advertising personality, said. According to Padamsee, an effective advertising campaign tries to ferret out facts but this campaign has been silent on what the government is thinking about corruption. “Why are they not saying what they will do about corruption?, “he said. However, according to one of the panelists, the campaign is merely to ensure the government tried its best ahead of the next election to stay in power. “Advertising campaigns have a very limited role in politics…You have a whole narrative of ineptness and corruption - the advertisement campaign is a weak carrier. At best its an insurance policy,” Santosh Desai, author and former head of McCann Erickson said. According to Desai, if the UPA really wanted to put their focus on the development narrative then that should have been the focus and not the advertisement. “To expect Manmohan Singh to speak to us is fantasy. It is being substituted through an advertising campaign and that is just not possible,” he said.