Suddenly there is a dearth of those who are proficient in the art of Photoshop in Uttar Pradesh. The onset of the election season has led to a boom in demand for experts in the art of Photoshop.
Almost every other day, brand new posters, depicting political leaders in various avatars of mythological characters, are finding their way into the social networking sites and messaging apps. If surgical strikes gave an opportunity to morph Prime Minister Narendra Modi into a modern-day Krishna who killed Kans, the festival of Dussehra turned him into Lord Ram who killed Ravan.
Apart from this, there are posters that depict various BJP leaders as kings who can slay demons like corruption, crime and poverty. These leaders are obviously chief ministerial aspirants in the state elections. The Congress, however, is at the receiving end in most of these posters and its leaders are depicted either as clowns or vanquished kings. Commenting on its plight in these posters, a senior Congress leader remarked, “We are not worried because every party has its day and ours will come soon. Then we will come out with our batch of posters.”
Punjab: Congress already lost hope In Punjab, the Shiromani Akali Dal government is distributing pamphlets to the people highlighting its achievements. However, things took a different turn recently when around 5,000 booklets were lying with Kharar civic administration near Chandigarh.
These booklets were to be distributed and a vehicle was arranged for picking up these booklets from the Kharar SDM office. However, to everyone’s surprise, a funeral van turned up at the office of the Kharar SDM and people started asking who had died.
The driver of the van, who had come from the office of the Kurali Municipal Committee, told enquirers that all was well and he had come to collect booklets of the SAD. When people present there objected to the use of a funeral van for such work, the driver made a hasty retreat. Not leaving a chance to take a dig at the government, the Congress said such incidents indicate that the Akalis had lost last vestiges of hope of coming back to power in the state.
Red road: An obsession for Mamata Mamata Banerjee seems to have developed a fascination for Red Road. After Independence, the arterial road has been used as a venue for Independence Day and Republic Day parades. After returning to power in May with a massive mandate, Didi surprised everyone by announcing that she would take the oath as chief minister for a second term at Red Road. As per tradition, such swearing-in ceremonies are held at Raj Bhavan. In 2011 after she came to power, she was sworn in at the Raj Bhavan. However, in May 2016, Didi wanted more ordinary people to witness the swearing-in ceremony, and so it was held at Red Road. The chief minister last week used Red Road as a venue for the carnival-like culmination of Durga Puja.
A veteran Marxist leader pointed out that Didi’s growing obsession with Red Road was rather incongruous given her aversion for everything “red”. Since 2011, at every event, the ubiquitous red plastic chairs have been replaced by green chairs. Even traditional red-carpet welcomes to dignitaries have been replaced by green-carpet welcomes. “Didi is so averse to red that I will not be surprised if soon Red Road will be rechristened as Green Road or Blue Road,” the Marxist leader quipped.
Dance is divine For Tara Prasad Bahinipati, a senior Congress leader and Opposition chief whip in the Orissa Legislative Assembly, politicians are normal human beings. Like any other individuals they have got their own passions to follow and emotions to live with. When he recently matched steps with sexy sirens of an orchestra troupe at a Durga Puja pandal in Jeypore — his constituency — some of his detractors dubbed it indecent and unbecoming of a lawmaker.
Not to be cowed down by such remarks, the legislator told them: “I don’t hide my emotions and passions. I represent a tribal constituency where dance and music is there in the nature and a blood of each individual. I have just followed the diktat of nature and respected the long tradition of our people. Those who are talking about my dance in the puja pandal should know that dance is divine and decent feel in themselves the natural urge to sing and dance. They must not waste their time and energy in unnecessary criticism.” After his remarks, the detractors were not heard saying anything further.
