Mystery solved: Why Narendra Modi was holding a white lotus

BJP’s PM candidate Narendra Modi has an FIR lodged against him for waving the BJP’s election symbol, a white lotus, immediately after voting. He waved the symbol in the press conference he held after voting in Vadodra and in the selfie he took off himself which was later posted on Twitter.

Modi  has called the FIR a desperate attempt by the Congress which is worried that “a  person who (once) eked out his livelihood by selling tea” was challenging it. At a campaign rally in Tirupati, Modi said, “Suddenly today when I landed here I came to know that an FIR has been registered against me…I will never forget 30 April. One can understand if someone points (threatens with) a knife, a pistol or a gun (and FIR is registered). But do you know why FIR was registered against me? Because I showed a lotus to the people,” he said.

But none of these protestations explain why Modi so conspicuously held up that lotus, making sure that it was in plain camera view while he held forth to the assembled reporters. More importantly, why was it a white lotus and not the traditional saffron and green lotus splashed across the BJP advertisements and posters.

One answer is tucked away inside this morning’s  Indian Express in a story about BJP’s PR strategy.

It’s hard to miss the white lotus on the famed chhappan inch ki chaati as BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi addresses one rally after the other. The flower, strikingly different from the BJP’s official saffron-and-green lotus, made its debut on the lapel of Modi’s trademark half-sleeve kurtas on April 7, the day polling began for the 2014 general elections. “The white lotus is a replica of the lotus that appears on EVMs (electronic voting machines). It has a strategic purpose,” says a top Modi aide.

That “purpose” is to ensure a constant exposure to the logo and hope that it will “seep into the subconscious of the voters and they will go for it instinctively when they stand in front of an EVM on election day.”

Surely, it’s not a coincidence that April 30th was indeed an election day, a critical one where BJP was looking to win big in Bihar, UP, and most importantly Gujarat – where Modi is looking for a historic win.

As Firstpost editor Sanjay Singh noted during Modi’s Varanasi nomination, his campaign has deliberately orchestrated big PR splashes on each election day, to ensure he gets maximum media coverage as voters head to the polling booth.

But this latest manouevre seems to have gone somewhat awry. What Modi got instead were blaring headlines that paired his name with the dreaded letters FIR – sending exactly the wrong kind of subliminal message. Surely, no one in his campaign or the man himself is happy about that.