Smoke-spewing vehicles motoring along the dusty village roads blaring parodies of hit songs had a timeless appeal during elections. This poll season, parodies have been given a tweak, made shorter and complemented by crisp edits and curated visuals.
Spruced up in designer kurtas, Thomas Isaac, the LDF candidate in Kerala's Pathanamthitta ambles on with a beaming smile in a reel. The music in the background is a take-off of the popular song from the movie 'Vikram'. It ends with the tagline 'The scene is going to change in Pathanamthitta'. His team followed it up with another reel played out to the parody of the hit song 'Kanmani anbodu'. Lines like 'Isaac is the star of this land, the star of red flag' pep up the short video.
Brief is beautiful -- the campaign managers of political parties have decoded the key to the success of this election campaign. All the action is unravelling on Instagram and X and they should also be ready for reactions.
The netizens soon latched onto Isaac's reels and dished out trolls. Now, the song with the lines ‘Isaac Vijayikum’ has been trending on the troll pages on Facebook and Instagram. Suresh Gopi, the NDA candidate in Thrissur, has been more than happy to let his screen image spillover to the poll scene. Be it his outburst at the BJP workers for not mobilising people or his dramatic responses to the media. Recently, a video of his election campaign at Irinjalakuda went viral. Suresh Gopi was seen shaking a leg with his fellow BJP activists to the thumping percussion music.
Mukesh, the LDF candidate in Kollam, went for a change and traded jokes for a jig. He tapped his feet along with folk dancers at Aryankavu Karayalar garden. He requested the dancers to teach him a simple step. Then he danced to the rhythmic folk song with the women dancers. A precisely cut short video did the rest. Toward the end of his dance performance, Mukesh smartly made a political statement; it was his mark of protest against discrimination based on colour in art.
His opponent UDF candidate N K Premachandran has already taken a few strides forward. Clone images of popular film posters aptly displaying matching titles were lapped up on social media. His posters with the tagline 'Kollathinte Premalu' have been grabbing eyeballs on and off the virtual world. UDF's social media team made a quick move to tap the popularity of the super hit film ‘Premalu’ to launch the campaign.
Back in the capital, short videos of UDF candidate Shashi Tharoor shot in brief docu format mixed with visuals and sound clips are being played on X under the hashtag - Tharoor for Thiruvananthapuram. Rajiv Chandrasekhar, the NDA candidate in the Capital, shot back with 'Ini Karyam nadakum' amped up by a theme song played in accompaniment of short visuals with a multitude of effects.
In Vadakara, which is witnessing one of the pulsating fights in Kerala, Congress candidate Shafi Parambil is impressing the voters with the new-gen ‘fist bump’ style. Every moment is captured and shared. The video of Shafi trying Kalari with 80-year-old Padmasree Meenakshi Gurukal has been trending on social media. Shafi has shared another interesting video promising his contribution to the development of sports in Thalassery. In the video, he was seen playing cricket on a turf. LDF candidate K K Shailaja has been unmoved, sticking to the traditional way of greeting voters with a smile and wave of hand. Her campaign team captures her videos of campaign trips through tough terrains, shot from low and side angles and presented with a dash of music.
According to the campaign managers, staying updated and creative is very crucial during this election. Seems they have been spot on, so far.
