Congress gets a hand: Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi, via AI

As more and more parties use Artificial Intelligence as a key tool in their campaign arsenal to amplify their political messaging, the Congress too is planning to take the AI route. Sources said the party may recreate Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru using AI, who would answer specific questions in the current political context.

The leader said the campaign would have a tagline such as ‘Agar Gandhi aur Nehru zinda hote (Had Gandhi and Nehru been alive)’, with the leaders’ images answering in their voice some of the questions thrown at the Congress by the BJP, as well as give their opinion on the “style of functioning” of the Narendra Modi government.

The Congress is also planning to use AI to create IVR (interactive voice response) audio messages in Rahul Gandhi’s voice in multiple languages, which will be shared on WhatsApp and other social media platforms of the party.

The BJP already has multiple handles on X where speeches of Prime Minister Narendra Modi are shared, in his voice, in regional languages – among them Bengali, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Punjabi, Marathi, Odia and Malayalam.

Each such handle uploads the PM’s speeches particularly relevant to that state, dubbing them into the local language using AI.

Earlier, the Congress rolled out its Lok Sabha election campaign with the tagline ‘Haath Badlega Halaat (Congress will change the situation)’. The party has hired advertising agency DDB Mudra to create its publicity campaign, while IPG is looking after the media distribution.

The first phase of the campaign – which will really pick up pace from the first week of April – carries the punchline ‘Mere vikaas ka do hisaab (Account for the progress you promised)’ and is more of a “negative one” seeking “accountability”