Twitterati vote for R Ashwin's campaign

Chennai: A video that lasts 28 seconds and in which a brazen and in-your-face R. Ashwin is addressing young voters in Tamil Nadu emerged a nationwide trending topic on Twitter on Thursday.

In the clip, Ashwin is seen pointing out to young voters that they should ideally be checking to see if their name figures in the electoral rolls than wasting time pointlessly arguing about who between M.S. Dhoni and Virat Kohli is the better captain and cricketer.

The clip is part of the Election Commission’s efforts to catch the attention of young voters in the 18-29 age bracket. In a few short hours, Ashwin’s clip helped put @TNelectionsCEO on the nation-wide trends list.

“We are trending all over India. It is a first for an (Indian) election campaign to be trending on Twitter,” said Chief Electoral Officer Rajesh Lakhoni.

On the decision to rope in celebrities like Ashwin, actor Karthi, cricketer Dinesh Karthik and his wife, squash champion, Dipika Pallikal, Lakhoni said, “Sports and movies are the proven area, which is liked across the world. It is the reason behind roping in personalities from these two fields,” Lakhoni said.

The CEO added that he has requested the Nadigar Sangam to help with the online Election Campaign and that the Tamil cinema film actors union will ask its celebrity members to lend a helping hand to the Election Commission.

The CEO’s office has also been running a crowd-sourced meme campaign asking random twitter users to come up with movie-themed memes that highlights the importance of voting and participating in the elections. Users can use the #TN100percent and #Memes2vote hashtags to put across their memes to the Election Commission.