Futuristic Politics: ‘Magic’ Modi Uses Holograms to Address Simultaneous Multi-City Rallies in World’s Largest Electorate

Now Mr Modi plans to use the technology increasingly at his rally appearances to reach five million more voters in the last two weeks of the Indian election campaign. He will appear live, in 3-D, at more than 90 rallies in small towns from Andhra Pradesh in the south, through Bihar in the east, north through Allahabad, his Congress rival Rahul Gandhi’s Amethi constituency and up into the Himalayan foothills at Nainital in Uttarakhand and Bilaspur in Himachal Pradesh.

He has already addressed more than 800 rallies in hologram form where his lifelike performance has been greeted with a mix of awe and disbelief. Many poorly educated voters had stayed behind after rallies to check behind the dais to see if he was really there, officials said.

The Indian general election is not only biggest in history, it is one of the most gruelling. Leaders have to travel its 9,300 mile length and 1,800 mile breadth several times over the course of a two month, nine stage campaign to 543 constituencies and their 800 million voters. Even travelling by executive jet and helicopter, they can barely address more than three rallies in a day.

Bharatiya Janata Party officials told The Telegraph the use of hologram technology had enabled Mr Modi to reach voters he would not otherwise address in some of the country’s most inaccessible corners from studios in Delhi and Ahmedabad in Gujarat where he is chief minister.

They believe it has played a vital role in extending the ‘Modi wave’ – the appearance that he has unstoppable momentum in the campaign. So far he has given eight hologram speeches to 900 rallies, each drawing average crowds of 10,000. By the time voting finishes on May 12, he will have given a further six speeches at 1450 rallies and reached more than 14 million extra voters.

Dr Arvind Gupta, head of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s digital campaign, said it could mean the difference between victory and defeat. “In the 2009 general election the difference between the BJP and Congress was 17 million votes, it’s that small. Every single voter counts”, he said.

Party spokeswoman Nirmala Sitaram said at some remote locations, where illiteracy is high, audience members believed Mr Modi had actually visited and were perplexed when the image simply disappeared at the end of the speech.

“When the lights are switched on and the public sees the stage is bare, the whole set has gone away, it creates a sense of awe. The illiterate in India’s villages are used to films but this is better…..They think he has probably gone to the green room. They wait for the experience to sink in and ask where he is. Is he behind [the stage]? Their faces are so surprised. They say ‘This happened and I saw it’”, she said.

Pravjot Singh, a trader, attended one of Mr Modi’s hologram rallies in Bathinda, Punjab, and said it seemed real. “People were screaming, shouting. I could hardly doubt his presence on the stage, it certainly looked it was him personally addressing us”, he said.

Mr Modi had experimented with hologram technology for rallies during his 2012 state assembly elections in Gujarat, and had assembled a team of up to 40 technologists and more than 400 camera and sound staff in 120

truck-based teams.

Ms Sitaram said the pioneering use of hologram images reflected Mr Modi’s desire to project a more modern image. “The Gandhis are decades behind,” she said.

Leading commentator Swapan Dasgupta said although the hologram campaign is supplementary to his main programme of ‘real’ rallies, it had added curiosity and helped project his “obsession with technology”, he said.

He had been an early adopter of social media and other alternative channels to communicate with the public because of newspaper and television criticism over his handling of the 2002 Gujarat riots in which more than 1,000 people were killed. “This is another way to reach out to people on his own terms,” he said.

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