9/28/2008 10:07:05 PM

The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) will launch a massive publicity campaign targeting not only the domestic print and electronic media, but also the Punjab diaspora throughout the world through Internet and foreign newspapers to boost the image of the party ahead of the Lok Sabha poll.

The party aims at highlighting all its major achievements and proposed projects to strike a positive note with the Punjabi voter.

Party sources said a conscious decision had been taken to avoid hitting out at the Congress in a slanderous ad campaign as in the past and concentrate on the positives of the SAD-BJP alliance.

The campaign, especially the audio-visuals, will focus mainly on people of the state and through them speak about the “achievements of the government”.

The campaign will initially be sustained for two months and then tweaked further, based on whether the parliamentary polls are announced by them or not.

Once the polls are notified, the model code of conduct will come into place and each ad will be counted towards the poll expense. Initially, the party has set aside Rs 2 crore for this period.

A senior leader of the party said, “Modern technology such as Internet, SMS, etc will be used to reach out to people with the highlights of the government. Besides, you will see that the advertisements are not confined to papers and television channels of the state. The party is negotiating rates with newspapers in Canada and the UK that has a large Punjabi population. This is being done because past experience has shown that NRIs greatly impact poll results”.

A major focus of the campaign will be on benefits given to people such as the like atta-dal scheme, achievements in terms of revenue generation such as increase in VAT collections, etc. Besides, the party will highlight major projects initiated by it.

The party is also in the process of finalising themes for the short ad films that will have people speaking about the “greatness of the party ventures” rather than politicians beating their own trumpet.

But in all this a deliberate attempt is being made to keep party president Sukhbir Singh Badal on the centrestage, thereby projecting him not only as the “man with the vision”, but also “the future leader who will take Punjab ahead by his dynamism”.