The Battle for India’s Waistline

November 19, 2013, 9:23 AM

The Battle for India’s Waistline

SAPTARISHI DUTTA

With its before and after shots of dramatic weight-loss, the latest election poster from India’s main opposition, could, at first glance, pass for a Slim-Fast ad.

The youth wing of the Bharatiya Janata Party, known as Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, posted the picture on its Facebook page showing an obese man who supposedly slimmed down during the Congress party’s time in office as he struggled to buy enough to eat because of high food prices.The caption on the tongue-in-cheek ad read: “At first, I used to be really fat. I used to be worried all the time because of my weight. Then, I voted for Congress… Along with me, they looted the nation to such an extent that I could not afford food because of inflation. Now, I’ve become slim and trim. Thank you Congress.”

The post got 38,918 ‘likes’ on the social networking site and had been shared by 8,730 people within 2 days.

But it could backfire for BJP, said Prem Shankar Jha, a political analyst and Indian journalist. “It’s the worst ad BJP could ever produce,” Mr. Jha said. “No Indian is going to identify with a fat man,” he added.

India is a country where around 43% of children under five are underweight for their age and 70% are anemic, according to the World Bank. It is also home to 25% of the world’s hungry.

Food is, for these among other reasons, likely to be an important electoral issue as the country heads to the local and national polls, according to S. Chandrasekharan, director of South Asia Analysis Group, a Delhi-based think tank.

The wholesale price index, the country’s main inflation gauge, has been rising since June on the back of higher fuel and food prices. It rose to an eight-month high of 7% in October.

“The middle class will be totally against the government because of high food prices,” said Mr. Chandrasekharan.

The BJP has repeatedly raised the issue of high food prices as a means to attack the government.

A billboard campaign, recently put up across Delhi by the party, shows the price of onions at 100 rupees ($1.6)  a kilogram and tomatoes at 80 rupees a kg, ($1.2) with the caption, “Whenever Congress is in power inflation is backbreaking.”

Onion prices quadrupled from last yearto reach a record price bracket of 90 rupees – 100 rupees in some parts of the capital during October when India’s festive season and demand for the vegetable were at their peak.

To sway voters, the BJP began selling onions at heavily discounted price across India’s capital earlier this year. And the Congress party followed suit.

The main opposition party is aware from the sting of experience that the cost of onions can cost elections. The BJP lost the 1998 Delhi elections partly because of the high price of onions.

Still, whatever Mr. Jha’s opinion of the new ad, he thinks the BJP is right to attack the government’s record on inflation as the country heads to local and national polls. “Nobody remembers 1998,” he said.

It is perhaps worth remembering though, that the Congress party led government introduced and passed a Food Security law earlier this year that guarantees grain at very cheap prices to nearly 70% of India’s 1.2 billion population. A fact that could help it fend off political criticism that it neglects to feed its people.