At Ogilvy's 'Celebrating Piyush', a gathering to celebrate the life of the agency's former global CCO, Piyush Pandey, union minister, Piyush Goyal cleared the air about the 'Abki Baar, Modi Sarkar' line.

Goyal stated how Pandey had first turned down the BJP's approach ahead of the 2014 elections because he didn't want to work on the campaign. Goyal spent around seven hours with Pandey at the latter's house trying to convince him, but Pandey didn't budge.

However, the next day, Pandey called Goyal, stating that he had changed his mind and would have the agency work on the campaign.

After that, the duo sat together several times to jam on the campaign.

While there have been some suggestions that the 'Abki Baar Modi Sarkar' line wasn't created by Pandey, Goyal stated that it was during one such jamming session, Pandey came up with it. And when Goyal asked Pandey to clear the air about the rumours, the latter claimed that who took credit for the line made no difference to him. 

Also, at the event, R Balki, former group chairperson, Lowe Lintas, spoke fondly about the chats he had with Pandey.

Joking about how WPP's dip in valuation came right after Pandey's demise, Balki stated how the duo shared several 'trade secrets' about Lowe and Ogilvy respectively, while also recollecting a story about how they both tried to quit smoking by going for a hypnosis session. Balki stated that Pandey gave up on day number 16, while he himself stuck to it for three months. 

Prasoon Joshi, chairperson - APAC, McCann Worldgroup, CEO and CCO, McCann India, also paid tribute to Pandey, recollecting how he would often call him to crack jokes. If he didn't laugh at the joke, Pandey would call Joshi's wife and ask her to give him a cup of tea to make sure he was awake, and then call back to crack the same joke.

Along with the Ogilvy team and family members (Prasoon Pandey and Abhijit Avasthi), tributes were also paid by cricketer Arun Lal, Pidilite's Madhukar Parekh and Bharat Puri (the latter also worked with Pandey on campaigns at Mondelez and Asian Paints), Asian Paints' Amit Syngle.