India’s political system is characterized by two big parties, the ruling Congress Party (Indian National Congress) and the oppositional Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Currently, India is preparing for the parliamentary elections in spring 2014.

On occasion of the elections in Germany and the upcoming elections in India, the representatives of the INC could exchange their campaigning strategies with German politicians and experts as well as the use of (new) media as device of political communication. The journey was aiming at the opportunity of the Indian delegation members getting an impression of the German election and deepening their knowledge on election campaigning trough exchange with German experts. The representatives of the INC are confidantes of the main Prime Minister candidate of the INC, Rahul Gandhi, and are involved in the upcoming election campaign. The Indian politicians already organized a couple of campaigns for their party as well as for the acting Chief Minister of Delhi, Mrs. Sheila Dikshit, and were expected to gain more knowledge trough interaction with their German counterparts.

The main goal of the journey was the bilateral exchange on theory and practice of a media-political election campaign. Also, the journey served an international networking purpose. A meeting of a German delegation to New Delhi preceded the delegation of Indian politicians to Germany. During this journey in spring 2013, MdB Philipp Mißfelder, Member of the German Parliament and Spokesperson for Foreign Affairs for the Parliamentary Group of CDU/CSU in the German Bundestag, met a lot of politicians who were invited by the KAS to join the delegation to Germany in context of the elections in Germany.