Patna,(BiharTimes): “Bhoj ke samay kodha ropna,” goes a Hindi saying.

Perhaps inspired by ‘good friends’ in the BJP chief minister Nitish Kumar is out to brand and market Bihar on the eve of Assembly election. A couple of months before the announcement of election dates his government was reminded about launching a campaign to seek feedbacks from the people on their vision about Bihar’s development. Never in the history of state such an exercise has been undertaken and that too on the eve of election, when voters actually gears up to decide the fate of the government.
None else but the Patna high court had, some weeks back, questioned the state government’s "Badh Chala Bihar campaign" launched ahead of the Bihar Legislative Council election.

Opposition parties were perhaps right to accuse the JD(U) of misusing the state government machinery for political purpose, though it is also true that the BJP did exactly the same only sometimes back.

As is his wont, Nitish first criticizes his opponents and then goes on to adopt the same strategy and campaign. See the example of use of Twitter. Now he is making full use of social media, when earlier he used to make fun of it.

The big question is: Will such campaigns, hoardings and big seminars in Delhi, Mumbai, Patna or any other place would really help Bihar develop? The state government is organizing a series of"Bihar Development Dialogue" in major cities. Even if they are political moves, will such exercise yield votes to the ruling JD(U) in Bihar? 

Actually it is stock-taking time for voters. Instead of giving their own opinion about development of Bihar, they would give their verdict about the performance of the government in power.
The huge drain out from state exchequer would only benefit--- PR agencies, media and some seminarists.

But Nitish Kumar appears to be too much fascinated by the BJP’s idea of taking the help of advertisement and media to win election. True, Narendra Modi did succeed and came to power. But there were other factors too which favoured him.

Eight months later the same Narendra Modi faced humiliating defeat in the Delhi Assembly election when he repeated all the same tricks as he did in 2014. The BJP pumped innumerable amount of money in the campaign, press into service Union ministers, CMs, MPs and even others. Yet never in history of Delhi state election they performed so miserably. The party even got opinion poll conducted in its favour but even that ploy failed. 

Perhaps Nitish has not learnt from the BJP’s disastrous defeat. These computer savvy IIT and IIM grads may not always bring in good result. Rajiv Gandhi too tried them, rather unsuccessfully. 

Governments have lasted in Bihar and elsewhere too for much larger duration than that of Nitish Kumar; but not by spending so much on the advertisements. Instead they have won because of the good political strategy, equation, alliance and other tactic.

Sometimes too much propaganda creates an aversion for the government in power. BJP’s 2014 propaganda yielded result as it was in opposition, but did not in 2015 in Delhi as it was in power at the Centre.

Even Indira Gandhi lost the 1977 election when all the government machinery were used to propagate her achievements and the Press were gagged so that opposition’s voice is not heard. 

The bare fact is that if Nitish Kumar government comes to power again it would simply be because JD(U) join hands with Lalu Prasad’s RJD; and if it loses it would also be because of the same reason.