Hyderabad: Even as leaders of political parties and candidates have started their campaigns on the ground for the November 30 polling, fresh and daily battles are being waged online by them.
Be it old video clips clubbed with new comments from the candidates and party leaders, or taking potshots at one another, the online space has turned into a fertile ground for the parties and their social media teams.
It was Congress that started off a campaign saying that BRS and the BJP were in wedlock and distributed physical wedding cards to people even as it flogged the campaign online asking “yeh rishta kaya kehalata hai!!”
The BJP has now hit back, and pulled the AIMIM’s Asaduddin Owaisi into the mix with its own invitation for a wedding between BRS and Congress calling it a ‘nikhanama’ that will be hosted by the MIM chief and probably to make sure no one makes a mistake who the master of ceremonies is, also added a caricature of the AIMIM president.
The Congress has started a new campaign online, #MaarpuKavaliCongressRavali, where it lampoons Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao. A look-alike tries to speak about his promises and the sentence is completed by a voice-over that points out unfulfilled assurances.
Catchy one-liners are becoming the staple, at least for the BRS, with some doing well online, and others catching some fire on the ground. Those that are becoming popular on the ground are being transitioned to the world of social media.
One such contribution came from Minister Ch Malla Reddy, contesting from his Medchal seat, who is ever ready to shake a leg or do something unexpected, such as lifting an old woman and having her sit in his lap for a few moments. He has found more success with his “Andariki mupayo tarikuna yelu meda inku, aataruvata state antha pinku pinku (on November 30 there will be ink on the finger, and the state will turn pink).”
His catchy slogan accompanied by drumbeats, that went viral, was found irresistible by minister Gangula Kamalakar, and other BRS leaders who created their own versions of it. But by the time they got on the bandwagon, it had already gotten too well-known to find any extra purchase, with folks saying ‘This was already done by Malla Reddy’.
That the BRS has been finding many ways to beat up Congress is only well known and the latest barb came from BRS working president and minister K.T. Rama Rao who posed a question on X: “If ‘pro’ is the antonym of ‘con’, what is the antonym of ‘progress’? Don’t let them con you again and again. This of course, promptly prompted many to respond that the answer should be ‘Congress’.
Though the idea of playing the words ‘pro’ and ‘con’ and turning the response into the word congress is not new, Rama Rao’s post did bring some enthusiastic responses from his followers.
