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Journalism of Courage
With five days left to go for the second phase of Lok Sabha elections, social media was abuzz with poll-related videos, memes and public service announcements (PSAs).
In a bid to increase voter turnout, the Election Commission released a series of AVs and memes inspired by Bollywood to drive home the point that one should cast her vote and participate in the biggest electoral process. On his campaign trail, Congress Lok Sabha candidate from Thiruvananthapuram Shashi Tharoor was seen breaking into a dance.
We take a look at all that’s buzzing today!
The Election Commission on Tuesday posted a voting PSA video, featuring none other than Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman, K Somnath.
In the video, Somnath shares his experience of being excited as a first-time voter at the age of 21– that’s right, before 1988, the voting age was 21 years in India. The ISRO chairman urged voters to show up at polling booths: “Even if you have some difficulties in reaching the voting station because of your family commitments, your personal commitments, still you are making a wrong choice when you decide that I am not going to vote.”
The Election Commission also put up a post featuring Bollywood actors Ranveer Singh and Arjun Kapoor in a still from their movie Gunday (2014), in an attempt to get voters racing to polling stations.
The photo of Singh and Kapoor came with the text: “Dekhte hain… kaun pehle pahunchta hai polling station vote daalne ke lie (let’s see who reaches the polling station first to cast their vote)”.
The EC also wrote: “Accept the challenge to be a first voter at your booth. Are you ready?”
Sitting Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor, who is once again Congress’s candidate from the constituency, shook a leg with supporters during his campaign today.
In the video, Tharoor can be seen dancing to the song ‘Jai Ho’ from the Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire (2008), composed by A R Rahman and sung by Sukhwinder Singh.
Kerala goes to polls on April 26. Tharoor is contesting against BJP’s Rajeev Chandrasekhar and CPI’s Pannyan Raveendran.
Continuing with its trend of posting videos urging electors to vote out the ruling government, the Congress on Monday posted a video with the tagline ‘Baaki sab theek nahi hai (everything else is not okay)’.
The video, which takes place at a barbershop and involves a conversation between a barber and a customer, where the former remarks on the latter’s receding hairline. The video was accompanied with the caption, ‘Mehengai nahi… parivartan chuniye. Congress chuniye (Choose for change, not inflation. Vote for Congress).’
