Kerala Assembly elections: Writing on walls no more

Thiruvananthapuram: Wall writing and pasting posters which used to be a staunch  political activity during elections, has now become a thing of the past.

Most political parties now outsource these activities to professional agencies, contract workers while party workers have turned supervisors.  Even works like pasting posters and putting up banners are outsourced. Instead of party workers, daily wagers are hired who paint the city with party symbols in a record time.

In good old days, staying awake throughout the night to carry out the propaganda, also reflected one’s commitment to the organisation.  “During my youth days I used to paint party symbols on the national highway, make posters with ink. Coconut leaves were used for brushes. We used to burn the midnight oil to carry out the campaign,” recollected CPM politburo member M A Baby.

So is there a lack of commitment among political workers now “I dont think so. During those days resources were limited. Now you have latest technology with workers doing wall writing, make posters on their social media pages,” he said.

Mr Baby, however, agreed that the youth today was more career oriented compared to their time.

KPCC general secretary M M Hassan agreed that the number of active political workers had come down especially for carrying out such propaganda. “Now you have more employed people and less whole time political workers. The commitment levels may have come down, but still you have people braving heat wave conditions to campaign,” he said.

“We cannot generalise the issue. Party workers still do wall writing particularly in rural areas. You may not find this trend in cities like Thiruvananthapuram or Kochi. But technology has brought changes in tools of campaign,” said P Sreeramakrishnan, MLA.

“At the recent DYFI public meeting, those leaders who are active on social media got more applause from the audience. This shows the impact social networking sites which is an effective platform for dissemination of information,” he said.

But political leaders across ideological differences admit that activities like wall writing, pasting posters have ceased to be major political activity of most workers for obvious reasons.