Brand Akhilesh Yadav and the American style of campaigning

The 2014 general elections represent a watershed in the Indian electoral history in many ways. For one, it changed forever how campaigns are conducted in the country. The Lok Sabha poll campaign saw the then Gujarat chief minister, Narendra Modi, creating a parallel campaign machinery outside of the party to take his word to the people. His campaign to become the Prime Minister had, in fact, kicked off even before the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) named him its Prime Ministerial candidate.

Citizens for Accountable Governance (led by political strategist Prashant Kishor) helped Modi run a political campaign that could have