Anantha Krishnan M By

BANGALORE: It was business as usual on May 16 for the 20-member tech team that ran Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi's Mission 272+ campaign online for the past one year. Despite the euphoria over the saffron sweep, the brand Modi team behind www.india272.com chose to remain low-key. At their operational base in Jayanagar, a simple vegetarian lunch was ordered for the team from Maiya's, with jolada roti, pickle, rice and curd forming the victory day menu.

None of the team members wanted to take any credit for weaving the Modi magic, instead credited everything to the PM-elect. They recalled how hard Modi pushed the drive on the digital media and also admitted that breaching the magical number of 272 was the most inspiring moment of the day.

"It was hard to believe when BJP crossed our mission target of 272 seats and later when the NDA surpassed the 300-mark. Our strategy clicked this time and remember none of us in this team have any political background. For us Mission 272+ was a project, which we executed to perfection. Not to forget, we were the first to do such a campaign in India. We had nothing to refer to and started in a very small way," Shashi Shekhar, chief digital officer at Niti Digital, who spearheaded www.india272.com. said.

He said Modi, by the end of March, asked the team to upgrade the digital strategies and push for a 300-plus target for NDA. "He pushes the people so hard that it has a positive pressure on everyone. None complained since he was a leading from the front. So we had to live up to his expectations -- be it the quality of content, the timing of tweets or even the selection of photographs," says Shashi. "Multi-tasking was the key and Modi wanted us to constantly change ideas to inject a sense of freshness in what ever we did. His messages to us were clear and to the point," he adds.

While the core team of Mission 272+ has around 20 members, the volunteers associated with the project spread across at different centers. According to B G Mahesh, founder and MD of multi-lingual portal www.oneindia.in and lead volunteer with the project, all through the campaign, Modi emphasised for crowd sourcing. "He wanted us to get the pulse of people. He could weave a magical wave because he got on to the root issues of people. Modi's philosophy is to keep the people always engaged and it worked wonders," says Mahesh.

With the mission accomplished, Mahesh says that the core team will continue with their work considering the man at the helm of affairs means business. "The next set of ideas might be on their way from Modi as I speak to you," he adds.

Also Read

Sample Quality Counts, Says Indian Pollster Who Called Modi Triumph