BJP targets Congress-LS candidates in Chhattisgarh through cartoons
The ruling BJP in Chhattisgarh has come up with a series of cartoons on social media to attack the opposition Lok Sabha poll candidates, including former Prime Minister Bhupesh Baghel, over appeasement politics and other issues.
While the BJP said it has only depicted some incidents that took place during the previous Congress regime through cartoons, which are not intended to hurt anyone, the grand old party accused it of releasing such illustrations out of frustration.
For the 11 Lok Sabha seats in Chhattisgarh, the elections will be held in three phases on April 19, April 26 and May 7, as per the schedule announced by the Election Commission of India.
The cartoon posters were released this past week.
The post shows a caricature of Baghel leading a line, carrying a green flag with “jihadi giroh” written on it, towards a Rajnandgaon landmark, followed by cartoons of Raipur Mayor Aijaz Dhebar and former minister Mohammad Akbar holding guns .
Baghel is seen saying Bhaijan agla song Rajnandgaon ka hai’ (his brother’s next song is from Rajnandgaon).
BJP’s state general secretary Sanjay Shrivastav told PTI: It is a tradition in the country to use various communication mediums to send messages among the masses. Through the cartoon posters, the BJP has just depicted the incidents that took place (in the previous Congress government). The cartoon posters are not intended to hurt anyone.”
Senior BJP MLA Dharamlal Kaushik said his party is trying to portray the failures of the previous Congress government through satire art and has received good response from the people.
A cartoon of former minister Shivkumar Dahariya, the Congress candidate in the Janjgir-Champa Lok Sabha seat, was posted along with the comment “the people of Janjgir-Champa should remain alert while the former minister of Kabjabaaj (intruder) is now is watching your country”.
Dahariya is depicted carrying a large bag with avaidh kabja sargana’ (illegal encroachment syndicate) written on it, on his way to Janjgir-Champa. The cartoon says, “I heard there is a lot of land in Janjgir-Champa, let’s encroach it.”
Similarly, a cartoon depicting Jyotsana Mahant, the sitting MP from Korba Lok Sabha and nominated again by the party, was posted with “an appeal to the people of Korba: this time, don’t choose an inactive one, choose an active one . Member of Parliament”.
The poster showed two people asking “who are you”, and the woman is holding a poster that reads “mai aapki lapata sansad” (I am your missing MP).
Another cartoon poster of former MLA Vikas Upadhyay, who has been summoned from the Raipur Lok Sabha seat, asked the residents of Raipur to be alert and said that “vinash” (destruction) belongs to these “Vikas”.
In another cartoon poster of former Home Minister Tamradhwaj Sahu, the Congress candidate from Mahasamund Lok Sabha seat, the BJP took a swipe at him in April last year over the communal violence in Biranpur village of Bemetara district in which a 22-year-old Bhuneshwar Sahu was killed.
The man’s father Ishwar Sahu was later elected as a BJP MLA in the November 2023 state assembly polls.
The BJP has fielded its incumbent state minister Brijmohan Agrawal in Raipur, sitting MP Santosh Pandey in Rajnandgaon, senior woman leader Saroj Pandey in Korba, former MLA Rupkumari Choudhary in Mahasamund and Kamlesh Jangde, a new face, in Janjgir-Champa.
Chhattisgarh Congress Communications Department chief Sushil Anand Shukla alleged that the BJP has released cartoon posters with ‘baseless’ statements as it fears its party candidates will win by large margins.
Ever since the Congress declared its candidates for the Lok Sabha elections in the state, the BJP has become frustrated as it expects a defeat, he said.
They talk about ‘Modi ki guarantee’ in elections, but the central government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has failed on all fronts in the last decade, the Congress leader alleged.
Modi had promised to curb inflation within 100 days, provide employment to youth, double farmers’ income, get better returns for agricultural produce and infuse Rs 15 lakh into the bank accounts of every person, but none of these were delivered, said Shukla.
People have lost faith in Modi and they will teach him a lesson in the Lok Sabha polls, he claimed.
(Only the headline and image of this report may have been reworked by Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is automatically generated from a syndicated feed.)
First print: March 17, 2024 | 12:27 pm IST