Public Relation firms rake in election moolah
Political consultancy firms may earn Rs 800 crore from Lok Sabha polls
By : DC Correspondent
Update: 2014-04-19 05:50 GMT
New Delhi : The political consultancy firms are expected to mop up Rs700-800 crore from the ongoing general elections, according an Assocham study. The major political parties have roped in professional consulting firms to manage candidates’ overall campaign in both urban and rural areas.
“The disaggregating of the poll data is becoming important as things like vote shares, winning margins, vote concentration, demographical profiling among others are being used,” said Assocham.As per the Assocham estimates, in India, there are nearly 150 political consultants, big and small, charging nearly around from Rs1 lakh to Rs50 lakh for each constituencies (for 543 seats). The services on offer include managing media, planning campaigns, marketing policies, designing promotional material, website and social media page and weighing the prospects of rival candidates.
Voters’ profiling and sending right kind of message to the right kind of voters is the key, said Assocham. It is not just national parties such as the Congress, the BJP but also smaller regional parties that are using political agencies this year. It’s not limited to larger metros like Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Ahmadabad, Kolkata but also in tier- II and tier-III cities, political parties are betting on specialist to manage their campaigns, points out the Assocham paper.
Some political consulting agencies are mainly selling packages to parties at Rs50 lakh per year and to candidates at Rs5 lakh each, it said. Political consulting firms help to manage the campaign and election strategies of candidates for public, said Assocham.