Sticker War: Pre-poll campaign with cartoons and stickers raises political heat in AP

TIRUPATI: With the Andhra Pradesh Assembly elections still a year away and amid speculations of early elections, major political parties have begun setting the pitch for the high-stakes poll battle.

A ‘stickers’ and ‘cartoons’ war is raising the political temperature in the state and might reach its climax sooner than later. They are also breaking down the sound barriers by a profusion of haunting one-liners, catchy slogans and captivating phrases.

Curiously, the ruling YSR Congress and the Jana Sena (JS) have locked horns in many areas and are waging the sticker war. The ruling party is currently engaged in its ‘Gadapa Gadapaku Mana Prabhutvam’ public outreach programme amid a replay of slogans like ‘Why not 175/175’ (for the YSRC)?.

The YSRC’s new rival, the JS party is coming out with strange names for its protests against the Jagan-led gvernment.

The YSRC is planning to sponsor a sticker campaign featuring Jagan's image. It created stickers with Jagan's portrait and tagline “Maa Nammakam Nuvve Jagan”, underlining the welfare programmes the government has been implementing.

The party is making plans to affix these labels to the houses of the beneficiaries soon. It is also active in creating cartoon images, mocking Telugu Desam chief Nara Chandrababu Naidu, his son Lokesh and JS chief Pawan Kalyan.

Raising the pre-poll campaign to a high level, YSRC leaders in West Godavari have urged all volunteers to place “Maa Nammakam Nuvve Jagan” stickers on the mobile phones of all the welfare scheme beneficiaries. They claim this is done with the consent of the beneficiaries, but this might not necessarily be the case. The YSRC believes that these stickers would assist Jagan in capturing people's hearts, mainly the beneficiaries of his Navaratnalu initiatives.

In response, the JS party has designed stickers in addition to its cartoon war against the ruling party. The party created these with phrases such as "Maaku Nammakam Ledu Dora!", "Ninnu Nammalem Jagan", and “Appu Ratna Award”, to catch the attention on social media.

The TD is continuing with its anti-government campaign with titles like “Badhude Badhudu”, and “Idhem Kharma”. The main opposition party is also planning a stickers campaign with these slogans.