Hyderabad: As polls get closer and people’s attention is divided by rival claimants, politicians are getting more creative and more poetic to make their meetings entertaining with catchy slogans, punch dialogues and foot-tapping songs.
Making political content — be it speech or promises — interesting has become the need of the hour because only then people will make it viral and take the message to a much wider audience.
The strategy is paying off as netizens are spending most of the time watching memes and political debates. In Telangana, most trending videos are of political satire and punch dialogues.
Over the years, the powerful slogans have always helped parties to come to power. One such slogan coined by the Congress is “Bye bye, KCR”. During political meetings, when Congress state president A. Revanth Reddy says “Bye Bye”, the crowd responds by shouting ‘KCR”.
During the campaign of the BRS at Boduppal, the audience reacted ecstatically when minister Ch Malla Reddy said his signature style using rhyming words like ink and pink, “Andariki mupayo tarikuna yelu meda inku, aataruvata state antha pinku pinku” (On November 30, with ink on fingers, the state will turn pink).
According to Sreenivasulu K.M, a research analyst, “In Karnataka elections, we have witnessed that slogans used by the Congress had been quite impactful, especially the 40 per cent commission’. Its campaign had effectively conveyed the party’s message to voters, who later rejected the ruling BJP government and brought the Congress to power with a thumping majority. Similarly in 2014, ‘Ab Ke Baar Modi Sarkar’ influenced the voters to give a chance to then Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi to become the Prime Minister.”
If one goes back into history, he said Indira Gandhi successfully won the people’s mandate with the ‘Garibi Hatao’ slogan, and Lal Bahadur Shastri with his ‘Jai Jawan Jai Kisan’ slogan.”
Similarly, songs have always been used by political movements to convey their message. Be it India’s freedom struggle or the Telangana movement, songs served as catalyst to mould public opinion.
The highly trending song all across the state is “Moodu Rangula Janda Pati, Revanth Anna” — a song written for the Congress suggesting that the party will help the downtrodden, and teach lessons to corrupt landlords. The composer used a revolutionary beat for this song.
The Bharat Rashtra Samiti’s campaign song ‘Gulabi Jhandale Ramakka’ was composed with techno music. The BJP, however, has not yet released any campaign song so far and their camps are currently using “Bandi Sanjay Anna High Punch Remix.”
According to N. Shankar, writer, poet and movie director, said, “A poet as well as an illiterate gets connected with the music and song very easily. Lyrics when conveyed with music creates magic. Songs played a great role in most revolutions in the world. We can convey complex messages to people easily through songs.”
