Political branding in India

The political parties, in the near future, shall have to plan their political marketing in a more responsive, accountable and professional manner. Voters make electoral choices analogous to commercial brand typology to choose among the available choices based on trust. Election results are evident of the fact that voters are continuously switching parties due to lack of trust in any one political party. Purpose of this paper is to identify the possible reasons of decline in trust and the role of trust in making electoral choices. Specifically, this paper investigates three core questions: a. what are the reasons for candidates’ decline in trust? b. what are the key factors that will help to regain and strengthen the lost trust? c. what a candidate can do or should do to improve his/her trust among voters? A study sample has been drawn from the Bihar District, where voters have a long history of selecting different political candidates over and over again since 1990.