‘Abki baar’ ‘Vikas ki chabhi’ pitted against ‘Behen ji ko aane do’
Among the season’s bestsellers are Samajwadi Party’s ‘Vikas ki chabhi, Dimple bhabhi’ and ‘Vikas ka pahiya, Akhilesh bhaiyya’ and BSP’s ‘Betiyon ko muskurane do, Behenji ko aaney do’.
In poll bound Uttar Pradesh, where the battlefield is warming up each day and voters are being pandered to with all sorts of promises, campaigns have gone slick with piquant slogans.
Unlike past slogans that were limited to blowing a party’s trumpet, marketing geniuses have been targeting competitors, focusing on development and appealing to different vote banks with their slogans this year.
Among the season’s bestsellers are Samajwadi Party’s ‘vikas ki chabhi, dimple bhabhi’ and ‘vikas ka pahiya, Akhilesh bhaiyya’ and BSP’s ‘Betiyon Ko Muskurane Do, Behenji ko aaney do’.
Instead of riding ‘umeed ki cycle’ like it did in 2012, the SP is trying to draw attention to Akhilesh Yadav’s development work with ‘up ki majboori hai, Akhilesh Yadav zaroori hai’. Slogans including ‘ye jawani hai kurban, Akhilesh bhaiyya tere naam’ and ‘no confusion no mistake, sirf Akhilesh sirf Akhilesh’ have also struck a chord with young UPites.
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi continues to dominate and shape the campaign for Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP), which has not declared a chief ministerial candidate yet. And slogans too revolve around him.
‘Abki baar Modi sarkar’, the popular slogan of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections has been morphed into ‘abki baar bhajapa sarkar’ and ‘abki baar 300 ke paar’.
The BJP also seems to be in no mood to spare its competitors. ‘baap bete ke nakhre hazaar, abki baar bhajapa sarkaar’ and ‘na gundaraj, na bhrastaachaar, abki baar bhajpa sarkaar,’ is BJP’s way of hitting out at the SP.
‘Saath ayen, parivartan layen, kamal khilayen,’ ‘do batein kabhi na bhool - Narendra Modi aur kamal ka phool’ and ‘jan jan ka sankalp, parivartan ek vikalp’ attempt to push the BJP’s development agenda to the fore.
The Bahujan Samaj Party too has jumped on the progressive slogan bandwagon. Leaving behind slogans referring the party’s symbol, new slogans espouse women empowerment and development.
Slogans of the past such as ‘hathi nahi ganesh hai brahma vishnu mahesh hai’ have been replaced by direct appeals to voters such as ‘betion ko muskurane do, behenji ko aaney do’. The party is also attempting to emphasise its development focus through ‘gaon khushhal bananey do, behenji ko aaney do’, ‘nayi roshni dikhane ko behenji ko aane do’ and ‘sarvjan ko samman dilane ko behenji ko aane do’.