CLAIM

Ab ki baar Modi sarkar slogan was framed by SpiceJet owner Ajay Singh.

RATING

Debated.

ORIGIN

It's not often that slogans, that too, from ad campaigns go viral. For anything -- a song, an ad, a short-film, a tagline, a slogan -- to go viral, the idea or the content should check at least a few boxes - simplicity, recall value and the most important one being the ability to make a connect with the audience, even those who are not necessarily targeted.

"Ab ki baar Modi sarkar".

This is one slogan that went viral so much that even months before the 2014 General Elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party could boast about a 'Modi wave' that has hit India and made everyone feel that the majority is in favour of Narendra Modi, the face of the BJP and the prime ministerial candidate.

"Ab ki baar Modi sarkar", a slogan that took India by storm before the Modi wave hit the election booths, is simple, rhymes, easy to articulate and made an instant connect even with those who were against the man himself.

A few other taglines and slogans that had this effect are -- "Darr ke aage jeet hai", "Kya chal raha hai, Fog chal raha hai" and "Janta maaf nahi karegi".

But now the question is, who came up with "Ab ki baar Modi sarkar"?

Was it SpiceJet owner Ajay Singh?

It's debatable!

WHAT WAS AJAY SINGH'S ROLE IN THE CAMPAIGN?

Piyush Goyal and Ajay Singh set the creative and media strategy for the party. They were responsible for bringing in Soho Square on one side and roped in Prasoon Joshi, ad man and lyricist, to write the Bharatiya Janata Party's anthem. They also brought on board Sushil Goswami, national creative director of Delhi-based ad agency Ghaphisads, to come up with another set of radio ads.

A report in the Hindustan Times, however, said that top BJP leaders, along with some independent brand strategists brainstormed and came up with "Desh ki pukaar/BJP sarkar" and "Is baar/Modi sarkar", but that it was Ajay Singh who "supposedly made a spur-of-the-moment proposal, pitching for the now famous "Ab Ki Baar/ Modi Sarkar" in a late night conference call."

WAS IT PIYUSH PANDEY BEHIND THE SLOGAN?

Piyush Pandey, considered the 'Ad Guru' of India, was the man who led the Bharatiya Janata Party campaign. Pandey and his team at Ogilvy-Mather's agency Soho Square, with 30 people working in Mumbai and 20 peopl in Delhi, created the commendable BJP campaign.

In an interview with The Economic Times, Piyush Pandey said, "Individuals don't matter on projects like this. People like Anuraag Khandelwal, Satish deSa, Nilesh Jain, Rajkumar Jha, Pawan Bhatt worked day and night on this campaign; 30 people in Soho Square Mumbai and 20 in Delhi. We were producing 125 artworks every single night for two months. I wrote Ab ki baar Modi Sarkaar and Janta Maaf Nahi Karegi."

An excerpt from Ullekh NP's book War Room: The People, Tactics and Technology Behind Narendra Modi's 2014 Win, was published as an article titled "Abki baar Modi sarkar: whose line was it anyway?" in Scroll.in. It reads, "I once had a conversation with two non-BJP members of Team Modi just before the final phase of elections on 12 May when one of them claimed it was he who came up with the catchline," and it is safe to assume that it is Ajay Singh who he was talking about.

Ullekh's book also said that Piyush Pandey came out in an interview saying he was the father of the 'abki baar Modi sarkar' refrain.

It's Piyush Pandey's word against Ajay Singh's.

Whose line was it?