BJP’s 1 year in power: Cong launches campaign against Modi

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 25

On the occasion of the BJP government’s first anniversary in power, the opposition Congress today launched a massive social media campaign targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi and questioning him on 12 issues, including farm distress, frequent foreign trips, sluggish industrial growth, hazy foreign policy and friendliness to corporates.

Titled “Ek Saal Desh Badhaal”, the campaign comprising 12 caricatures of the PM has been designed as a Congress counter to the ruling dispensation’s plan of marking its first year in power as “Jan Kalyan Parva”. This is the first time Congress communication strategists have employed the tool of caricature to attack their political opponent.

The campaign, launched on all social media platforms to reach out to the 300 million plus internet users of the country, has “Ek Saal Desh Badhaal: Yeh hai suit boot sarkaar” as the principal header under which the themes keep changing.

The themes change with slogans coined around 12 issues such as —- “Behri sarkar nahi sunti kisan ki pukaar…aisi rahi Modi sarkar (to target the PM on farm distress); “Pradhan Mantri desh main aate hai kabhi kabhar…aisi rahi Modi sarkar” (to question PM’s foreign visits); “Udyog thapp thanda vyapar (to hammer sluggish industrial growth) and “Mehngi dawai rogi lachaar…aisi rahi Modi sarkar (to attack policy paralysis in health sector).

The Congress did not launch the anti-PM caricature campaign from the AICC but sent the campaign material to all its state units for use in hoardings which will be visible across states from tomorrow.

A top Congress communications strategist said, “We have to answer the government in the language they understand; hence the caricature campaign”.

Apart from the soft launch of the social media campaign to counter PM Modi’s talk on development, the Congress is expected to release tomorrow a booklet titled “Ek Saal Desh Badhaal” to list out the alleged failures of the Centre under the BJP rule. The launch of the booklet by party leaders in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha – Mallikarjun Kharge and Ghulam Nabi Azad respectively – will conclude the six-day sustained communication campaign by the Congress on the BJP’s first year in power.