India Election 2014: How BJP Strategists Made Rahul Gandhi Look Plain Silly

The elections to the 16<sup>th Lok Sabha, or lower house of India's parliament, saw campaign standards stooping to new lows.

Everyone bore the brunt, more so winner Narendra Modi and loser Rahul Gandhi. In Gandhi's case, the BJP systematically tried to paint him as an unready aspirant to matters of the state.

And they certainly did succeed in that.

Here are some of the examples of the line of attack on Gandhi that BJP employed.

"If you want to relieve stress, listen to Rahul's speeches. As per his mathematics, there are 27,000 crore jobs lying vacant in Gujarat. How can this be possible when the total population of Gujarat is six crores? What kind of Namuna (specimen) has the Congress brought?"

- Narendra Modi, latching on to a factual error in Gandhi's speech

"These people are born with a silver spoon in their mouth, they want to see poverty. They wonder whether the poor have two legs, two hands, does the poor also have a voice. These people go on poverty tourism."

- Modi, poking fun at Gandhi for visiting homes of lower-caste people.

"People who haven't seen the Taj Mahal take photos and share it with their friends and relatives. Similarly, Rahul bhaiya checks out poverty, gets photos taken with a poor child in his lap. When the cameras stop rolling, he dumps the child."

- Narendra Modi

"Don't go by his (Gandhi) age, he hasn't matured mentally and that's why kept talking about toffees."

- Modi, attacking Gandhi for saying Gujarat development model is a "toffee model"

Again Modi ripped into Gandhi, trying to make him come across as a child, after Gandhi said he believed the BJP campaign would get ruptured like a balloon.

"He keeps using the work gubbara (balloon) like a kid. He kept using the same word for ten days. Now that he is bored of his balloon, he has started asking for toffees."

"Now, it is for the people to decide if they want such a leader, and, if they too want to play with balloons and toffees. May be a toffee might make him happy, but I come from such a background where I did not even get a chance to have toffees in my childhood. I sold tea in train coaches and made money to survive."