India, May 19 -- Circa 1967, the late chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Kalyan Singh, contested elections for the first time on a Bharatiya Jana Sangh ticket from the Atarauli assembly seat. Kalyan Singh campaigned village to village on a bicycle with posters hanging on it. He was accompanied by supporters who cycled alongside him, and even bullock carts were used for campaigning. Kalyan Singh emerged as a winner too.

From intimate door-to-door public interactions to grandiose mass rallies, and from bullock carts, cycles, and the most ramshackle jeeps to grand roadshows comprising luxury vehicles, the political campaigning and tools employed by candidates for canvassing have undergone a sea change in today's technology-driven era.

In the...