Swinging the Mandate: Developing and Managing a Winning Campaign

Swinging the Mandate is a first-of-its-kind book on political campaign management in India. Prof. Dheeraj Sharma, chair of marketing at IIM Ahmedabad, and Narayan Singh Rao discuss how sophisticated campaign management strategies have been utilized in recent elections in India. The book offers excellent case studies from the historic general elections of 2014 and the landslide victory of AAP in the 2015 Delhi elections. It also gives examples of some hard-fought elections in Europe and North America to demonstrate increasing use of principles of marketing and management in campaign management. Armed with comprehensive research and interesting case studies, this accessible book reveals how star campaigners are built, what the marketing mix for a political party looks like, and how elections are won in India

Dheeraj Sharma is a professor and chairperson of marketing at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. Sharma earned his doctoral degree with a major in marketing and a double minor in psychology and quantitative analysis from Louisiana Tech University, USA. He has taught and presented research papers at numerous education institutions in North America, Europe and Asia. Sharma has authored over a hundred papers and five books on marketing, consumer behaviour, B2B marketing management, cross-cultural research and leadership. He has four upcoming books on international business, sport marketing management, healthcare and talent management in India.
Narayan Singh Rao was a PGPX student at IIM-Ahmedabad. He is the founder and CEO of the
start-up the Indian Iris.