LS Campaign in Telangana a Mix of the Usual, and the Unusual

Hyderabad: Irrespective of the outcome of the Lok Sabha elections in Telangana state, and whether the newly-minted MPs will be a part of the ruling alliance at the Centre or play a role in government formation, the campaign that ended on Saturday evening, has been quite colourful, to say the least.

The heavyweight topics such as what the Centre needs to focus on, including issues relating to reservations, preservation of the Constitution, and the like, the parties also had some fun on their own which was of course at the expense of the others in the contest.

In the process, it has emerged that the Congress loves donkeys. It also put crows on notice, especially those that may fly in from the BRS side of the political turf. The AIMIM loves baigan (brinjal), and the BJP after much prodding by the donkeys and some well-placed kicks, too picked up a baigan or two as it attempted a feeble fight back.

As expected, the campaigns by the three main parties had their fair share of back and forth — often laced with severe bitterness and near rancid acrimony — on issues relating to agriculture, farmers, and promises made and not kept by each other.

It was the unexpected entry of animals and vegetables that livened up the campaign in their way, throwing in a mix of unexpected but catchy slogans, and actions. And this they did, with a certain sense of gay abandon but all the while trying to impress the voters from the point of view of the party making it.

Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi was not immune to this. After all, there is nothing quite like Hyderabadi catchwords — something that Hindi speakers from the rest of India usually greet with some amusement. His linguistic gauntlet thrown at his last public meeting in Telangana state for the ongoing polls during which he declared that people in Hyderabad are now saying “Congress nakko, BRS nakko, BJP koich vote dengey” was quickly picked up by AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi with a typical dismissal call of Modi’s claims with ‘baigan ko bolo’ retort, that was enthusiastically picked up by the crowd at his last public meeting as their response to everything Modi said and claimed.

Incidentally, this is possibly the first time in the last three decades that the AIMIM is facing some electoral heat in the face of an aggressive campaign by the BJP’s K Madhavi Latha. To reach out to more voters, and in a first for the party, the MIM released a campaign song in Telugu, a development clearly aimed at non-Hyderabadi and non-Urdu speaking voters.

The biggest introduction into the campaign that took everyone by surprise, particularly the BJP at which it was aimed at, was the onslaught by TPCC president and Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy who launched the ‘Gadida Guddu’ campaign.

A popular expression that means nothing has happened, just as donkeys don’t lay eggs, this campaign by the Congress hammered home the message that what the Modi government gave the state was nothing more than, well, a ‘Gadida Guddu’. Then of course, there were some references to how a crow from the BRS side of the political field will not be allowed to land on the Congress side, and if they do so, that will be at their own peril.

Having to fight back, the BJP launched a half-hearted reply to the Congress, borrowing as Modi did, the Hyderabadi ‘baigan’ analogy. “What did Revanth give?” the question went and the reply was of course, ‘vankaya’, which is Telugu for baigan. But the belaboured translation meant the BJP lost the plot the first time it tried, and apparently wiser heads prevailed and this retort campaign died an extremely quick death.