With election time coming near in India, I wanted to share one of my all-time favorite stories about power and politics.
In 2011, one of the local party leaders in Tamil Nadu was on the campaign trail, meaning that he was driving around a large van and speaking to crowds using a public address system. All of a sudden, the microphone stops working. The leader then yells at one of his own party candidates, and proceeds to beat him over the head with the microphone.
In certain countries, that is the end of your political career. Not in India.
The #PowerPlays guide to overcoming an embarrassing PR event:
Strategy #1: Deny the incident ever happened and claim that your opponent has fabricated the story to make you look bad.
Oh wait, you have actual video footage of it happening?
Strategy #2: Say, “That man in the video is not me and my opponent is using complex video editing tricks to make it look like I beat this man over and over. But IF that is really me in that video, then so what?”
To quote him, “The person I beat up will become a maharaja later!”
Meanwhile, the beaten candidate should continue to deny the incident ever took place.
In the end, the beaten man won his election, and the party won 28 more seats that year than the previous year. Not too bad!
Here’s a link to the story, just so you know I am not making this up.
I hope you enjoy following the elections in India this year! #Powerplays at their best!
I guess you are a bit of shocked 😛