election ads on tv

i pity the BJP. no, no, i'm not a BJP-hater or a Congress lover. i'm only commenting on the apparent difficulty that the party must have faced in designing its ad campaign on TV.

the BJP ads are centered around the theme of majboot neta, nirnayak sarkar. now there are a few difficulties in projecting this as the theme.

(1) the only time BJP has been in power for a full term was five years ago. and five years is a long long time when it comes to memory of the masses. so they can't project their achievements then.
(2) the neta here, i.e. mr. advani, hasn't held the prime minister post ever. so again there are no established records of his majbooti.
(3) with all this, the theme translates to a mere promise. and promises are aplenty in any election.

faced with this, the only thing BJP can do is bring out the negative points of the Congress rule. this translates to the economic slowdown, mumbai attacks, poverty etc etc. contrast this with the Congress's campaign which is positive in every sense of the word, made possible by the fact that they are the incumbents. on television at least, i think positive has a distinct advantage.

a point here. personally, i'm not in the favor of using the mumbai attacks as a political issue in these elections. if the BJP is saying that had it been in power, the incident would not have happened, then i'm sure even the staunchest of BJP supporters won't agree with this (unless he or she supports the party just because it is a party). it makes little sense, then, to take political advantage of the suffering of so many people.

back to the main issue. except for the black and white ad that has an impressive recital as the background (somewhat like the gulaal songs), i couldn't find any other BJP ads scoring high on the creative level. i think the dialogue-based ads of Congress score over the song-based ads of the BJP when it comes to talking about issues pertinent to the nation. with big bucks at stake, i think the BJP could have packed in more punch in its campaign.